Quarantined in the Desert
by NerdLife
Summary: A group of fourteen college strangers expected a fun hike up the Loric Trail. What they didn't expect was being unknowingly quarantined inside some cabin in the middle of the desert with no way out. The fourteen must fight for their sanity and their lives while they are trapped with no way out, yet while they inevitably try to fight their way out. Human AU.
1. Chapter 1

** Disclaimer: I don't own, you know, anything - just my ideas.**

Chapter 1

A shrill alarm clock echoes in my ears. I slowly blink up and look to the white ceiling. The fatigue still spins around in my drowsy brain, and I'm about to sleep again, when I hear the banging of a fist against my closed door. In a pure flurry of being tired, I whip one of the pillows beneath my head at the door. It makes a loud _woosh_ as it collides, and then sinks down to the gray carpeting. With some satisfaction, my eyes blink to a close and sleep drifts into my brain.

Then the door swings open. I bolt upright at the swinging door hitting the wall that startles my fatigued brain. Standing in my doorway is my best friend and roommate, Marina. She has a pair of sunglasses resting on top of her dark hair that is up in a bun. She's wearing a white shirt and yoga pants. She clutches a silver canteen in both of her hands as she tips her head at me like an angry mother.

"What are you going to yoga or something? Don't wake me up; I have a class in," I look over to the digital clock on my desk piled with text books, "two hours."

"Maren Elizabeth," she starts.

"Oh no, we're going with the full name," I mutter to myself as I await a lecture.

"Did you forget? Today is when we're going on that hike," she says.

"The hike that you said was gonna be friend bonding and that you signed us up for, but is going to be wasting a week of my life? That's today?" I question.

And then I start to wake up and I remember that we're in the first week of summer at our college, and that I packed everything for this week last night. So with remembering that, I jump out of bed, because we're leaving for this stupid hiking thing with a bunch of strangers in an hour. As I jump in the shower, I grumble to myself about how stupid this all is and that I don't want to do this. It's just that Marina thought it'd be fun to do as friends, since we've been best friends since I can ever remember.

After I jump out of the thing, I brush through my hair in a flurry and I wrap a towel around my head as I dress myself in the Nike tank top and yoga pants shorts that I laid out last night. I tie a pair of black hiking boots on my feet, and then I throw the heavy pack of food, water, and all necessities onto my back. I pull my wet hair into a bun as I meet Marina in the small kitchen of our apartment.

"We need to go," she shoves a small bowl of oatmeal into my hands as she walks past me. "I'll drive us there, you eat."

I follow in silence, in all reality, I'm still half asleep. We throw our bags in the trunk of her car before driving away from our apartment. Marina's eyes focus on the road as I stuff my face with the tasteless and grainy mush. I finish the food quickly and before we pull out of the parking lot, so I toss the plastic bowl and spoon onto the floor of her car.

"So are you ready for today?" Marina asks, excitedly as she turns onto the road.

I shrug, "As much as possible, considering your constant badgering about packing. How long is this drive going to be?"

"About an hour," she says.

"So do we know any of these creepy strangers going? For all we know, we are both hiking to our death with some campus cult," I say, as I fiddle with the radio until there is an acceptable song playing.

Marina laughs, "Well I know one kid from my Biology class."

She says it with the similar shy tone. It makes me sit up from my slouched position instantly, "You say 'kid' when you're talking about guys!"

She looks uncomfortably at the road, "Mer, I didn't want to tell you that he was the one who told me about it-"

I cut her off, "Because I'd assume that you signed us up for it, because of a guy, well it seems like it."

"It was impulsive, but hey…best friend bonding week," she says, weakly.

I roll down the window and stick my hand out as I smirk, "So that's what we're calling it? So what about this kid? What's his name? And pretend that I asked you other girly questions."

Marina smacks my arm, "Stop being so…sarcastic. But his name is Joseph Vishinu."

"Vishinu? As in some Indian something?" I question.

"You're the Pre Med major, you shouldn't know that."

I shrug, "What can I say? I'm a genius."

Through the windshield, I see us driving away from the city and towards the desert. This all seems way too creepy. The bars on my cell phone start to dwindle down. This is like the beginning of some bad horror movie.

"By the way, did you tell anyone that we were leaving? You're supposed to do that before hikes in case you get lost or hurt," Marina says.

That only makes me feel more creepy chills. I shake my head, "I didn't tell my family, if that's what you're asking. They aren't so happy that I'm staying up at the university for summer. But I did tell a bartender."

"You're not even twenty-one; do you have some sort of fake I.D.?" Marina jokes.

I shake my head, "No, you're misunderstanding me. I told the bartender that I work with, remember I waitress. His name is Luke."

Marina shakes her head, "So some random dude named Luke knows that you're hiking in the Californian deserts and may or may not die."

I point a finger at her, "Something feels off, if you keep talking cryptic like that, I will jump out of this moving vehicle."

Marina chuckles, "Why are you being paranoid? It's extremely out of your character."

I hold up my phone, "We've lost all service," I point to the static coming out of the radio, "Radio signal is gone. This is the beginning to some movie!"

She smiles, "You seem really scared right now."

I cross my arms, "I'm not scared it's like some intuition."

"Fine," she says in between laughs. "But I did tell my parents, so we're good about somebody knowing about us."

"Hey, Bartender Luke is dependable, too!" I joke.

Marina laughs at my joke and starts to simply chat with me. While she does, I turn off the static radio and I kick the bowl on the floor with my feet. I can't shake off this weird feeling about what we're about to do. At least I wish that we went out to lunch with these people before or something like that. It just feels wrong and like I could be killed. I wish that, I don't know, that I lied to Marina and said I wasn't feeling good. If that were to happen, both of us wouldn't go. If only I did, we wouldn't be traveling deep into a desert with hills, cacti, and valleys filling our vision.

"Wow, this seems like the perfect place to die. It will take months for the authorities to find our bodies!" I chime, with my voice laced in sarcasm. "Seriously, Marina, can we just turn around?"

The car slowly stops and Marina pulls the keys out of the ignition, "Too late, we're here."

I look out to the trail leading to a big mountain, but it blends in with the rest of this. "What? How can you tell? Did they tell you to stop by the cactus?"

"Ha, no, see look Loric Trail." Marina says, pointing to the small sign in front of the trail.

"Who is in charge of all of this?" I question.

Marina climbs out of the car and I follow. "Some senior, Mark James, he runs the hiking club."

"There's a freaking hiking club?!" I exclaim, "Why'd I go to this dumb college?"

Marina places the heavy pack in my arms, "Shut up, it's a onetime thing."

I groan and slip my arms through the sleeves of the backpack. I look around at my surroundings. My mouth suddenly feels very dry as the dry sand whips around from a breeze and as the scorching sun beats down on my skin. Everything seems too weird. One of those weird things that drift across the desert in those movies rolls by us. Nobody else is here, no other cars, just us and the sand.

"Marina, let's go home. Nobody's here," I say.

Marina glances around and some anxiety has settled in her eyes, "Maybe you're right."

"I'm always right, now let's leave," I rush out, as I throw the pack back into the trunk and pace towards the passenger door. Way off in the distance, I see two cars approaching, but it makes me get in the car faster. This all seems too wrong.

But Marina notices the cars, too. She looks out in the distance whilst leaning against the open car door, "Mer, look! They're here. We must've been early."

I frown, climb out of the car, and place the aviators over my eyes. We lean against the back of her car as a black and a blue truck approach. They stop beside us and bile rises in my throat. This is all off.

A tall, buff guy with dark hair hops out of the black truck and he smiles at Marina and me. He walks towards us as the blue truck parks. He extends his hand out to Marina to shake, "Hi I'm Mark James."

Marina shakes his hand, "Marina."

He turns to me; I grip his hand in a bone crushing shake as I say, "Maren Elizabeth, but call me Mer."

He smiles, "Nice to meet both of you. I'm sorry that you were here first, but these guys here called me, because they were lost. So I had to lead them here. We're still waiting on a few others."

I look at the guys barreling out towards us. They're all considerably tall, except for one who is a giant. One has copper skin and black hair, another has dark hair and thick glasses, the giant has his dark hair tied up into a literal bun, another has dark hair with sharp features and a big nose, and another has short blonde hair and blue eyes. The last one seems familiar in some form. All five of them are wearing shorts and packs on their backs. It seems as if Marina and I are the only girls here. Yep, we're definitely getting killed.

"I'm Joseph," the tan one says and he winks at Marina.

"Sam Goode," the one with glasses says.

"Stanley," the guy with the bun breathes out in a cocky tone.

"Adam," the one with sharp features mumbles.

"John Smith," the familiar blonde boy murmurs.

I wave and say my name with false friendliness. The seven of us stand by Marina's open trunk as Mark runs back up to his truck. The only noise is the loud wind that whips sand in our face, and Marina and Joseph talking with each other. The other four boys seem to be examining all of my features. It feels odd, because they are looking at my face and body with too much interest. Not to mention that all of these guys have regular names in case we slip away if they try to kill us. I mean, John Smith, are you freaking kidding me?!

Mark comes back with a bunch of stickers in his hands; he looks down at them and presses them to everyone's upper chests as he passes by. I tense up when his meaty hand presses hardly into my shoulder. Once he walks over to Marina, I look down at the sticker. It has a number six in the corner and then my name and nickname right by it. I look to Marina who has a seven, then to Joseph who has an eight, Stanley who has a nine, and John who has a four. Sam and Adam don't have a number at all.

"What's up with the numbers?" I ask.

Mark shrugs, "It's in the order that you signed up."

"Why don't I have a number?" Sam asks which is a little relieving that he's questioning some of this too.

"I had three blank ones for the first three people to sign up, you were one of them," Mark says, simply.

I try to fight a frown or cocking my head, it's all too weird. Maybe this number thing could be an organization thing. Or it could be aligned to some weird form of torture and death. I mean, we're in the desert right now. Why does Marina have to be so naïve and believe that everyone is good? I swear if another girl doesn't show up, I'm faking a sickness and leaving. Actually, faking a sickness doesn't sound too bad right now.

Right when I'm about to start complaining of stomach issues, a small silver car starts peeling towards us out of nowhere. I can see vaguely behind the wheel, and it is a blonde girl with a wide smile on her face as she speeds towards us. She parks sloppily and rebelliously right next to Marina's car, if a door was open, it would've been torn off from the speed and lack of precision.

The door is whipped open, and confident footsteps in the gravel are the only sounds in the desert. I can't see the girl until she walks all the way out of the length of Marina's car. She stops in front of us with confidence. She has long blonde hair and tan skin. She's wearing a similar outfit to both Marina and me.

"H-hi," Adam stutters out. I don't blame him; the girl radiates cockiness and confidence.

"I'm Heidi," She says, with her hands on her hips.

Mark searches through the stickers, with shaky hands, and he holds one up to her, "There you are, number one, Heidi!"

She smiles and takes the sticker from him, "Thanks."

Silence overtakes us after Heidi sticks the sticker on her shirt. Even if this isn't life threatening, it's still going to be miserable; we can't even talk to each other. I pull my pack onto my back as the wind whips in our ears. A few excruciating seconds later, the sound of tires on the ground and an engine running fill the air.

A small black car chugs along until it comes to a stop right next to me. Three people come barreling out, two girls and one guy. The guy has dark hair, and the one girl has auburn hair and the other has light blonde hair. They stop beside us with squeaky clean hiking boots and smiles on their faces.

"Hi, I'm Hannu, this is Maggie and Sophia," the guy says.

Mark searches through the stickers, "Ah, two, three, and five. Here you go."

They stick the stickers on themselves, and thankfully this time small conversation fills the group. And by that, I mean the Heidi starts telling nonsense stories and insults anyone with an array of curses if they say anything that is remotely close to countering her point.

It's about ten minutes later when the last car pulls into place. It's some red sports car that just screams: "My daddy is rich and he pays for all of my schooling, we own yachts, and we visit the Hamptons every weekend!" So it doesn't surprise me when an average height girl climbs out with a perfect look. She's the atypical definition of a "perfect" girl. She has blonde hair, blue eyes, and subtle makeup on her face. I already dislike her. She pulls out an old camera and starts taking pictures of her surroundings. While she does that, a young teenage girl climbs out of the passenger seat.

"Sarah?" Mark breathes out.

From the gleam and the shock in his eyes, I can tell there's some obvious history there. It surprising. At least it will add some interest to this trip. I can tell they won't kill me, especially since all of these guys are disarmed from our good looks.

Her head whips in his direction, "Oh, Mark."

An awkward silence takes over us. And from the loaded eye contact of annoying feelings between the two cause a tension in the air. Seriously, I could cut a knife through it.

Thankfully, Heidi speaks up, "So your name is Sarah, huh?"

The girl turns her blue eyes away from Mark and to Heidi and she nods. "Yeah, I'm Sarah. This is the little girl I babysit; Ella, her parents went away and asked if I'd take her hiking."

Mark gives the stickers to them. I notice that Sarah's is blank and Ella's says ten. I honestly don't get it. I just shrug it off, we have a car and I can fight from doing boxing in high school. It was easy to worry over nothing.

"Alright," Mark says with a squeaking voice, "let's get going. We'll be taking the Loric Trail; it's a week hike up the hill and mountain. We'll see some beautiful nature of the desert and some cool animals, the end destination leads to a nice resort."

"What kind of hiking trip is this?" I mumble to Marina as we start to walk.

"Don't worry, this'll be fun," she says, enthusiastically.

All of us reach the mouth of the trail, and I really consider turning back now. If I leave now, I can get out of this shady hike, and I can go back home and to the gym. That's easy exercise. But, I guess not. My leg muscles start pushing against the ground as we make our way towards our very long journey ahead.

**Alright, so this was a good idea that hit me. I understand the first chapter was a bit boring, which is a surprise to me, usually I write with an exciting lead. But anyways, it will pick up from here, and there will be more twists than there are at ice cream shops, this chapter was just the exposition. This whole thing will be in Six's POV. Oh, and please, if you'd like, leave some reviews as to what you think. Please? :D**


	2. Chapter 2

** Disclaimer: I don't own this and yeah… Oh, and warning: some mention of partying, because it's One/Heidi, it's just her persona. :) Oh, and in this human world, they are older. Six is about 16-17 in the books, but she's nineteen here. Just clearing that up for less confusion, because this is an AU.**

Chapter 2

This climb is complete and utter bullshit. First off, Joseph keeps flirting with Marina, so I'm left to walking alone in this group. Second off, right away we're encountering big hills that have dangerous brush that could really hurt us if we were to fall. Third, the sun is unbearable, I'm reasonably tan, but I feel like all of my skin is being burned off. And lastly, Mark is making us ration our water! I mean, I seriously packed enough water to fill an entire lake, yet I still can't drink as I please.

Damn desert.

So after an hour of boredom, fatigue, and thirst, I am allowed to take a sip of my water. It makes me feel a little better, although I just want to jump into a tub of ice cold water. It's so hot.

We're climbing after the minute long break. I watch the group as we do so. Joseph and Marina are hitting it off; it seems as if they don't pause at all in the conversation. Stanley, John, Adam, and Sam are all huddled together and each keeps casting glances in everyone's directions – Adam's is on Heidi, John's is on both Sarah and I, Sam's is on me as well, and Stanley's is on about anyone that is a girl. Ugh, pigs. Sophia, Maggie, and Hannu are all chatting together; I assume they must all know each other very well. Before I can finish my observation, a voice rings in my ear.

"Hi I'm Heidi," I look over to the tall blonde girl who is smiling and climbing next to me.

"Mer," I grunt out, as the hill starts to steepen.

"Really?" She says, calmly with sarcasm in her voice, "Because your nametag there says that it's Maren Elizabeth."

"Maren Elizabeth is too feminine and girly, it'd suit her better," I say, as I point to Sarah who is freaking out when a spider starts crawling towards her.

Heidi barks out in laughter, "So I'm not the only one who got a typical rich girl vibe from her?"

I smile, "Right, but yeah, so I just go by the first syllable of my name."

She nods, "I assumed. So, since you're the only other person walking alone other than me, we're now hiking buddies."

"Um, okay."

"So," she says, bored while dragging out the 'o' in the word. "How old are you?"

"Nineteen, you?" I mumble out. I hate small talk.

"Um, well…twenty-four," she stutters, unsurely.

"Twenty-four?" I ask and repeat.

Heidi puts one of her hiking gloved clad hands up to her mouth and she takes a sip of something hidden in her hand. Once she finishes taking a swig, she lets out a breath, "I hit it pretty hard in my first three years of college. And by that, I mean I partied and skipped class too much. So technically I'm a senior this coming year and I'll graduate then."

"You could've just said that you're graduating late," I joke.

She shrugs, "Well, whatever. What's your major?"

"Pre Med," I say, and that turns a few heads.

"Shouldn't you be on some smart person trip to medical internships and not on a hike?"

I roll my eyes, "Don't even get me started on how I was forced into this hike. I'd rather be at some nerd convention."

Marina turns around and looks at us with a smile on her face, "Its best friend bonding week!"

Heidi holds her hand up, "Bitch please. From this time, you aren't bonding too much right now. If anything, Mer, here, and I are becoming amazing friends."

I let out a laugh at that, Heidi isn't being rude by any means, she's being extraordinarily sarcastic. At least there's some interesting stuff going on in this trip. Marina knows that she's joking, too. She just smiles and turns her head back forward so she doesn't run into a cactus.

Heidi talks to me with her permanent sarcastic tone. She tells me that she's an accounting major, but she can't do math for crap, she's just doing it for the money. After a whole monologue of her spitting out math formulas and trying to explain them until she yells out that they make no sense and how stupid it all is, she starts telling me all of her party escapades. She doesn't seem as if she's calmed down since her first years of college, just that she knows to go to class now, because she's built up a better tolerance to not get hangovers. It's very interesting and intriguing; it's like listening to one of those people that have the best and most interesting stories about their lives.

Mark yells out that it's time to stop for our lunch when Heidi starts telling the whole group, who is now listening, that some movie about crazy drinking that I haven't seen, doesn't even describe her experience. It's when she's about to delve into details that Mark is uncomfortable and we stop. It isn't really much of a lunch; we are forced to follow the food schedule, which is some crap granola bar as we sit under the shade.

We start to climb up the hill not so long after. It is considerably steeper now, and it's hard to keep a grip with my gloved hands and nice hiking boots. Heidi tries to tell her story, but we're all out of breath, almost instantly, from this tiring climb. I couldn't imagine if we were out of shape. But it is comical how Heidi trails off into silence.

She says, "Oh, damn. This…is too…hard to even…talk right now." And then she lets out a dramatic grunt and breath.

I look down to my purple watch that is sliding on my wrist that is slick with sweat. It bounces around as my inexperienced feet move around on the crumbing ground. The numbers have a glare from the sun beating down on us. I manage to get a glance at the watch when we all stop at an even ledge to catch our breath. It's around three in the afternoon. I guzzle down my water and pull the hat I packed onto my sunburned forehead. And then we start climbing up the hill again.

It's so hot and uncomfortable from the sun. It feels like I'm swimming in a pool of my own sweat. The sun stings my skin, and the humid air sits still on every inch of my body. It results in us losing a lot of water from so much sweat. The hat clings to my sweaty forehead and hair. Not to mention my clothes that could be rung out at this point.

So it comes to a huge surprise to me that after a few grueling and hot hours, the sun goes down and a chill bursts in the air. Now the freezing cold air bites at my hot and burnt skin. It feels amazing for awhile, even though it makes it hard to breathe from all the cool air. The cold air dries up all of my sweat and makes my soaked clothing have a cool chill to them.

We eat again as we carry ourselves up the hill. It's now too cold. Seriously, it's either blisteringly hot or freezing cold in the desert, there is no in between. I struggle for awhile, because I try to pull on my jacket while we climb, but after a few minutes, I get it on.

The only sounds are the crunching of our tired footsteps, our labored breathing, and the wind. My legs ache a lot from this difficult climb. It seems as if everyone else is tired too, people are slowing down and I'm in second place, behind Mark. If I wasn't so competitive, I'd be a little more comfortable with my legs and I'd have the ability to breathe. I'm just pushing myself to lengths that suck.

Random trees come into view, and they cast shadows in the dark sky illuminated by stars. It's intriguing to watch the trees cast shadows until they blend into the night. It's just interesting. Random birds start flapping their wings and panic and they fly out of the trees. It's the first other sign of life we've seen. I thought we'd see cool animals along the way, yet all we've seen is some stupid black bird. The dusky sky settles into a black darkness so we all pull out our flashlights. Now all I can see is the length of the light that is cast from the fourteen pairs of flashlights.

I look down to my watch and the illuminated numbers show that it is eleven at night. I'm ready for a rest, we've been moving like crazy for the past twelve hours. We need some sort of break. It doesn't surprise me that within the next fifteen minutes a bunch of people ask when we are going to settle down for camp tonight. Each time, Mark responds with, "Just give it a little time, we've traveled slower than usual, but we'll be to a certain clearing that I know of. We're almost there."

But it doesn't seem like we're almost there. My wristwatch now is edging towards midnight. And the poor little girl, Ella's, legs are starting to give out in fatigue. This sucks. This camp seems as if it's never going to pop up, and I swear if this guy doesn't let us stop all night, I'm turning around and going back to Marina's car.

We reach less steep grounds. It's more of a slight uphill path that is full of loud sticks that we step on that make a creepy echoing noise. More trees come into view, and I didn't know that the desert had many trees like this. The noises of birds are kooky and loud, they echo and there are many. It sounds as if millions of birds are in the trees, watching us and warning us. From the glow of the flashlight, I can see many beady eyes illuminated. A pang of suspicion is in my stomach, this is just getting weird.

"Mark, maybe we should just turn around?" John suggests, but it comes out as a question from his unsure tone.

Mark shakes his head rapidly, "No. No, I know that it is around here."

"Around here?" Heidi bellows.

"No, no, I know it is coming up soon," his unsure tone accompanied by the birds makes a chill creep up my spine.

Marina is now by my side and Heidi is on the other. "Maybe we should turn around and go back to my car," she whispers.

Heidi elbows my ribs lightly, "She's right, this Mark guy seems crazy."

Mark is now looking back at the group who has come to a halt. The beams of lights flash around him, and from the shadows, I see a creepy and angry glint in them that make all the oxygen leave my lungs. But in a second that look is gone and he looks calm, "We're fine. We're almost there."

That's when his flashlight goes out and all the thirteen others die down like they're a set of dominoes. Somebody lets out a scream in panic, it sounds feminine, probably Sarah. My ability to breathe is gone, and shock and panic rip ramped through my veins. I knew I should've just stayed home this morning. Now I'm going to die.

"Dude, let's just turn around and go back to the cars," I think it is Stanley who suggests, I can't tell since its pitch black around us.

"No, it's a twelve hour walk!" Mark bellows.

"But its downhill, won't that be a little faster?" Heidi asks. She now has a death grip on my bicep, she's terrified.

"No, maybe around ten hours, but you'll get killed. There are coyotes. And there's the chance that you'll take the wrong route and/or fall from the lack of light!" Mark yells. His ideas are rational and right, but his tone shows mental instability. God, this is all so wrong.

"Hey, look over there!" Sarah yells out.

My eyes scan my surroundings like she instructed, and I see nothing but blackness. But then, I see out in the distance is a little blurb of light. That's random, and I don't know why Sarah was excited about it, it seems creepy and terrifying that there is light in the middle of the desert. But then a ray of hope fills my mind, maybe we took a different route and we're already at the resort. Then we can escape Crazy Mark.

"What is that?" John breathes out.

"Is it the resort?" Heidi asks.

"Let's just go towards it, it's our only hope," Mark says, considerably calmer.

From some shit crazy reason, we follow him. It's like a horror movie. We're trapped in some sort of wooded area with no light, no ability to get to our cars to drive away, we see something random and creepy, and we're approaching it because of some guy who is acting crazy is leading us there. This is how I'll die. But really, I have no options. My legs are starting to freeze, and I can hear howls out in the distance.

Marina and Heidi have both weaved and interlocked their elbows with mine. It makes me feel some security and safety; the three of us have the right state of mind. Yet we're still going towards this random light in the middle of the desert.

The only sounds now are our breathing, the howling of coyotes in the distance, and our shuffling feet. It is truly deafening and it makes it hard to breathe from the rational fear tearing through every inch of my being.

It's around one in the morning when we reach the source of light. I'm so shocked from the sight before us, that no oxygen goes into my body. It results in my mind swimming in pain and shock. I should've turned around. Hell, I should've never gone to some random hike in the desert. Sitting before us is a two story cabin with every light on, it's too wrong and perfectly placed from something to not be wrong.

"What do we do?" Ella's small voice chatters out between shivering teeth.

"I'll knock to see if someone is here," Mark says, way too calmly.

He walks up the creaky steps and his footstep echo on the front porch. His fist smacks on the door twice and loudly. He waits patiently and I try to look through the front windows. I see couches and lamps from here, and there are some windows to the upstairs, but I can't see through them from here. Suddenly the lights seem too bright, and they hurt my eyes immensely.

Nobody comes to the door for five minutes, and Mark knocks each of those minutes. Eventually, he just hesitantly turns the doorknob, and the door slowly squeaks open. I can see a living room fully inside. Mark looks back at us and waves us to follow him, and my stomach flips. Reluctantly so, we follow him. My grip on Heidi and Marina are like iron as we make our way up the creaky stairs. I can't breathe, because this is all too wrong and weird. Something will pop out and kill us.

Mark makes us wait at the front door as he goes through to look at the house. We all stand right next to the open door with paranoia in my mind. I constantly feel like somebody is watching me, and I find myself looking over my shoulder into the black nothingness of the path we just took.

I practically jump out of my hiking boots when Mark appears in the doorway. From the bright lights, I see a wide smile displayed on his face. He no longer has a pack on his back, and he stays inside of the house.

"Come in, nobody's here and this place is awesome!" he exclaims.

With no other choice whatsoever, we follow him indoors. The door slams shut behind Ella, who was the last to enter. The surroundings are terrific. An expensive living room is what we're standing in. Perfect white couches sit around a chimney with a big flat screen up on the wall above a fire. An open kitchen is by the living room with a new stove, fridge, and counters. And a nice dining table with fourteen chairs looks out of a large window showing a ravine. A spiral staircase stands in the center of a bunch of old gaming systems in the corner opposite to the living room, it probably leads to bedrooms. This place looks like a high class New York apartment; it's nicer than my apartment. I also notice that it is bigger on the inside than it looked on the outside. It must be one of those houses.

This all seems too perfectly place. I'm intuitive and smart, so I know that this is a bad idea.

"There are five rooms upstairs with a bathroom in each, great king sized beds, and a TV in each," Marks says. "So in four rooms we'll need three people, and in one room we'll have two people. We'll sleep here for the night and continue tomorrow."

I feel so fearful and I'm in such shock that my legs start moving towards the stairs. It's against my will. I should run. But even if I do that, that is a stupid idea. Either thing I do is going to be straight up idiotic. Running through a desert, blindly, at night while being utterly exhausted is a death wish.

So Marina, Heidi, and I are the first upstairs, and I pick the room closest to the stairs so I can make a getaway if necessary. We all enter the large room that is the size of Marina's and my apartment. Instantly we slam the door shut behind us to look at large white walls, with a big bed with a white duvet neatly covering it. A large window sits above the headboard to reveal a crescent moon. Two bed stands sit on each side with a lamp on top. Parallel to the bed is a nice TV with movies and seasons of TV shows stacked beneath it. A door to the bathroom is on one wall.

"What do we do?" Marina whispers out, in panic.

Heidi locks our door behind us, "Right now, we sleep. We need rest."

I nod, "She's right. If we get rest, we can run tomorrow. When the sunrises, we'll be able to see, so we need to get out of here before everyone wakes up. From there, we can run to the cars and get far away from here."

"Yeah, we need to run. This all seems too wrong and…off," Marina says.

"Does that thing have an alarm?" Heidi asks, pointing at my watch.

I nod, "I'll set it for 6:30, we'll get a good five hours of sleep and some sunlight will be shed."

We all change into a pair of new clothes with shaky hands. We all lie in the comfy bed with the soft duvet covering us. It feels hot and sticky on my skin. The tone and venom in Mark's voice scares the shit out of me. Something is wrong about this. Just hiking in the desert and finding some random cabin. I think it's easy to assume that Mark plays a huge roll in this random cabin and the flashlights going out. My skin crawls as I slowly drift off to sleep.

The subtle beeping of my watch snaps me out of my deep sleep. Marina and Heidi start stirring too. My bones and muscles ache from the excessive exercise. It takes me a few seconds to realize the events of yesterday and that we need to leave. Something bad is going to happen, and I know that something is wrong with Mark.

I jump out of the bed and strap the backpack onto my back. There's no time to change clothes or to brush my hair and teeth. We need to get out of here before anyone wakes, and then we need to run to the cars. And then go to humanity where we're safe. Marina and Heidi have their packs on too. We all silently creep out of the room, and we shut the door after us. We creep down the spiral stairs and to the living room. It's dead silent and empty, good. Now we can run.

We stop at the door, and my hand grips the doorknob. It won't turn. I pull at it more desperately now, and it won't budge. Marina starts helping me, and I try to nudge Heidi to help, but she just stands there with shock all over her face. Annoyance floods my veins as I tug at the door that will never move.

"Mer," Heidi whispers, while nudging my arm.

From the dejection in her voice, I stop and look at her. Fear is all over her face, along with dejection. I follow her eye line to the walls around us. My heart stops at the sight. And any and all hope in my system escapes my body like when a balloon loses all of its air. My jaw drops and my legs almost give out.

The walls that were once wooden are now made of steel that could never be broken through. The windows are now opaque with black spray paint all over them and one life changing word written on it. I almost pass out from the word and fear floods my system. My pack falls to the ground and footsteps echo in the staircase, but I'm too shocked from the word spray painted within the black on each and every window.

_Quarantine._

** Ooh, dang! It's getting intense up in here! Now things are going to get real. So, anyways, as you can tell, I write considerably fast if I want to. It's a whole matter of determination and not having a life…don't depend on this, but there are possibilities of me updating daily, don't take my word. But anyways, expect some craziness up ahead, what can you expect from being trapped in a cabin with their leader who is already mentally unstable? Also, you may be wondering who quarantined them and why. If they'll have powers. And what the crap is gonna happen. You'll figure out in the due time. Reviews are quite appreciated. Thanks! :) **


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I own nothing – just my ideas.**

Chapter 3

My eyes stay glued on the word that is now surrounding me. I spin around and look at the word quarantine while it spins around in my brain. I know what this word means, and that's the last thing I want. My eyelids open and close rapidly, almost as if they're trying to erase the word imprinted on every window.

A long winded creak emitted from the staircase is what reminds me that someone is coming down. It adds to the uneasiness and fear running through my brain. I grab a book sitting on top of a table next to me, and I whip it at the first person I see.

I let out a breath of relief when what I see are the five guys – John, Stanley, Joseph, Adam, and Sam. It is Stanley who I threw the book at. He dodges it and yells out in surprise when it hurdles towards him and crashes into the wall. The five, with backpacks on their backs, rush down faster when they see us. They move quickly and swiftly until they stop right before us.

"Are you trying to leave?" Stanley asks.

Heidi nods.

"Us too, let's go," John says, walking past me to grip the handle.

I put my hand on his arm as he passes in an attempt to stop him. He does stop and look at me in confusion. My head nods and motions to the windows and walls. I could try to talk, but right now, I'm in such shock, and I don't think that I can talk. All of them stop to look at the walls and windows. Following that is the symphony of five bags falling to the ground in pure shock.

"Quarantine?" Joseph breathes out.

The actual sound of the word makes the reality of it hit me more. The whole group is in shock with their mouths agape. I'm the first to even bother to talk, "This must be some mistake. Quarantine-"

Heidi cuts me off, "Quarantine," she says monotonously as she looks into a book in her hands, "a state, period, or place of isolation in which people or animals that have been exposed to infectious or contagious disease are placed."

I watch as Heidi shuts the dictionary in her hands and as she places it back onto the table and looks at us expectantly. I push past everyone and I push on the door, "This is wrong. This is wrong, we aren't infected with anything. We've only been here for a few hours. How could we've been infected with anything?" I grunt out, as I push all desperation into this door to open it.

"Regardless, we need to get out," Stanley says.

I rush over to the window, "There has to be some way. There's always a tiny slip-up in a plan. It might be our window out," but I trail off at the word window as my gaze goes to the windows in the room. From my look, everyone understands.

"We can break the windows!" John exclaims, rather loudly.

We all shush him, but it's too late, footsteps are rattling down the steps. I consider hiding or cracking that window open. There isn't time though, and I feel slight panic rattle through my veins. It subsides instantly when I notice that it is everyone else in our group, besides Mark. It seems as if all of us have planned to run before Mark would notice. Too bad we're quarantined.

"Are you guys leaving too?" Sarah asks, when they notice us.

It doesn't take long for us to explain. We just point to the walls and let them process. After that we tell them about the windows, and we find ourselves throwing a lamp at it with full force. The lamp bounces into the glass, and to everyone's dismay, the lamp shatters on impact of this, obviously, very strong window.

"What now?" Sophia asks.

I storm up to the window and feel around the glass. It's hard; a bullet probably wouldn't shoot through it. My quick fingers trace around the sill to look for anything to open the window. At the bottom of the window, a small square sits there. I instantly know that it opens from the outside. Whoever quarantined us is quite thorough.

"Um," I mumble out, "The window idea is a bust. I look around the room, and my eyes stop on the fireplace and a smile crosses my face, "The chimney. Ella, you're the smallest, you're up, see if you can climb out."

She looks at me with hesitance, this poor girl. She's probably only fourteen. She was probably going to start high school soon, but now she's quarantined in a house. Everyone tries to shoo her on, but I shake my head at it.

"Never mind, I'll do this." I say, "It's not like the chimney is _that _small."

Nobody really argues. I assume that everyone else is just too shocked at our situation. But its fine, I'm fine. I can handle pressure, even if it's life threatening. It's unconsciously done and an instinct of mine. My feet have already rushed myself over to the chimney before I have time to process. I crouch my body down into a small enough ball to climb into the fire place. It's crowded and dusty in here. It's hard to breathe and it feels claustrophobic on my body. My hands grip onto the ashy brick and my hiking boots grip onto the grooves. My biceps strain as I take all of my weight off of the wooden logs on the ground. Anything that there is of my fingernails snaps and breaks backwards as my knuckles curl around the surface with all of my weight. In precise movements, I lift one arm up and then the other, and then I move one leg at a time. It's hard, but I force myself to move quickly. Veins strain in my neck as I scale the small area. My eyes stay straight on the brick before me.

A few strained moments later, my head lightly hits a surface above me. I crane my neck back to see that I'm at the top of the chimney. And instead of seeing the sun and blue sky, all I see is a black square covering the open window out of this house. I put one of my arms against the chimney wall, and I lean on my shoulder as I use my other hand to desperately push at the cover. I switch hands again and again when it doesn't budge. This really can't be happening. My stomach drops about the situation before my actual body drops. Only depending on one arm and two legs to keep my body up was destined to fail. My feet lose their grip and in a moment of error, my other arm loses its grip. It feels like hours as I fall through the air of the chimney. After a few initial moments of shock, I put an arm out to stop myself. Both of my hands skin against the wall as I slide. Skin tears down layer after layer until my feet roughly hit the ground with less force than originally planned. My feet do hit the ground quite hard though, and one of my ankles gives out at the impact and pain shoots up my leg.

I let out a grunt in pain, and I shimmy out of the hole to the fireplace. The first thing I see in the light of the room is my skin dyed a charcoal black from the ashy fireplace. But when I look up to the group, the air deflates out of my lungs. The pain in my body is gone, the sight of Mark making his way down the stairs, with my ignorant allies watching me expectantly and with no idea that Mark is approaching; that makes my fear so much worse than the pain.

"What are you guys doing?" he asks.

All twelve of them spin around in shock. A lot of them let out gasps of horror. I just stand still, with hands in fists and a neutral expression as I watch him. He repeats himself when nobody answers. I stay silent and wait for him to notice our surroundings. Once he does, he repeats himself again, it's more of a panicked expression though. It surprises me when he starts pulling on the door and banging at the windows. He's not as crazy as he was yesterday. He seems truly shocked and terrified. That doesn't mean that I trust him.

"Why are we quarantined?" he exclaims, fearfully.

I watch him closely and wait for his expression. My fists tighten and a frown makes its way on my face when he reaches for something in his shorts pocket. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the sharp tools for tending a fire. My eyes lock in on a sharp and pointy stick, if he pulls anything odd out, I'll jump for it. So I can keep myself safe.

To my complete and utter surprise, he pulls out a white smartphone with a bulky case on it that says _I love hiking_ and it has a mountain behind it. I watch each muscle and grain of his skin move with suspicion in my eyes as he dials a number and puts it to his ear. He starts pacing and when he has his back to me, I grip the sharp and blunt poker.

"Shit. Shit. Shit!" Mark yells out.

"What are you doing?" I ask him.

He turns and looks at me. His crazed and worried expression switches to a confused one when he sees the object in my hand. He puts his hands up in defense, the simple move that people always do saying "please, don't hurt me."

"What are you doing?" I repeat.

Stanley shoves his arm, "Answer her!"

Mark glances around at the whole group with a confused and pleading look. He's surprised when everyone is looking at him with a hostile expression. Heidi is now gripping another sharp weapon from the fireplace. She strides towards Mark.

"Answer. Her. Right. Now." She commands, annunciating each word with a poke of the instrument to his chest.

He steps away from her and holds his hands out in front of her, "Calm down. Why are you all threatening me? I was calling 911, and a park ranger, hiking buddy of mine."

"Oh," I breathe out, and I lower the object to the ground, "any luck?"

He shakes his head, "No service. Everyone just try calling."

So I do. It may be helpful. Everyone whips out their phones and starts to pace. I do too, but a limp accompanies my walk as I watch for any bars to appear on it. It's probably about ten minutes of everyone pacing and cursing with no luck that we give up on the calling idea.

"This makes no sense," I mumble out, as I pull my backpack on and shove the phone in my pocket.

It doesn't make sense. We're trapped with no way out with no reason why. I'm just shocked and confused at everything. I still don't like the glint in Mark's eyes or the way he reacts. I grip the weapon in my hand as I stab at the wall. Nobody reacts as I bang it against the steel. It doesn't work to any surprise; it just breaks the fire poker into two sharp sticks along with a dent in the wall.

For now, my only option is to realize that there is no way out. Even I'm not smart enough to get out of this full proof quarantine. It doesn't make sense though, none of us are infected. None of this makes sense, but I do know that I need to get away from Mark. He's still acting as weird and shady as last night. His actions drive me to put the two pieces of the steel into my backpack, so I can have a weapon if I need it. I need to go to that room and get away from Mark.

The soreness resting in my ankle is a good enough excuse. I can take a look at it from my knowledge of the anatomy from my major, but I know that it's sprained already. It's a good enough excuse to hide in the room – away from Mark.

I'm about to make that excuse when the TV on the wall flashes on without anyone's command. I spin around on my sprained ankle to look at the image on the TV. It is a man who is wearing an expensive suit, well from what I can see from the chest up. He has short brown hair that is cropped close to his head. Scars are adorned on his face. And he has a stern glint in his gray eyes.

"Hello, I'm a member of the U.S. government; we have issued quarantine on the group of you hikers, because at a nearby base, some civilians broke in and let out terrible fugitives. They are assumed to be in your area so we quarantined you all for your safety," he says, and the screen goes black.

A bunch of murmurs echo in the group. They are calm now, as if his words have convinced them that we're okay. But I stand there with crossed arms and a scowl on my face. Something is wrong about this. He didn't give us a name. And if someone really broke out, the case would be witness protection, I'd know. It is fishy, because the definition of quarantine shows that it has to do with an infection. So he's saying we aren't infected, but they're keeping us safe. It's a lie and I know it, if this was real, the government wouldn't do this. They're lying, and it doesn't settle me whatsoever.

Almost the whole group is calmed by the video. But not me, I limp to the staircase and the whole group watches. "I'm going to look at my ankle, it may be sprained from that fall," I say, and thankfully Marina and Heidi follow.

I lie down on the bed and look at Marina and Heidi who stand in front of the door. They look at me with expectation filled expressions. I pull my hiking boot off to reveal a mixture of purple, black, and blue solidly covering my ankle. With my knowledge, I press around on it and I feel nothing broken, I assume it's sprained. I pull out the wrap for this issue out of my bag; I packed it to be prepared.

"The 'government' is lying. We aren't quarantined, we're just trapped. If it were the case, they'd put us in witness protection," I say, as I wrap the bandage tightly around my ankle.

Marina nods, "It's obvious, but everyone else believes it. This is bad. What do we do?"

I shake my head, "For the first time ever, I don't know."

Heidi throws her bag on the ground, "Whatever, I'm starved. Let's just eat for now."

So I do eat. My mind swirls and races with plots and ideas about all of this. It is uneasy to swallow the food with the thought that I'm trapped and that Mark is in here with us. The government is lying to us. Something is up with Mark. And I can't leave. This is all so terrible, and I don't know what I can do.

"What's that?" Marina points out, nervously, from her spot next to me on the bed.

I follow the line of her pointer finger to an unknown green gas spills in from beneath the crack in the door. My eyes widen and I watch in horror as it keeps spilling in. Add another problem to the list. I don't know what it is, but I know that I shouldn't inhale it.

"Get as far away as possible, to the bathroom!" I exclaim, and slowly roll off of the bed.

We all stumble into the small white tiled room, and we slam the door behind us. We all pin ourselves against the wall furthest from the door, but it's inevitable and we know it. It doesn't take long for the green gas to fly in beneath the door at an exponential rate. I take in one last inhale of oxygen before opening the door to see the room full of green gas. This is terrible; we're trapped with no way to air this, probably poisonous, gas out. I get lightheaded and my lungs burn as I stand in horror in the green gas.

We're quarantined, and now we're being poisoned. We're going to die.

** What a nice poison-y cliffhanger? The green gas seems quite random in this quarantine, huh? But it plays a huge roll and will add everything together, soon. So, just, there's that. Thanks for the reviews so far…feel free to leave more :) Thanks!**


	4. Chapter 4

** Disclaimer: yeah, don't own it…still. Anyways, brace yourselves ladies and gents. I don't know if I should warn about what's to come or if we even have to leave warnings, but I'm being safe. So…warning, there's a mention of a shooting and a panic attack.**

Chapter 4

My lungs burn as if acid has been poured down them. They also feel as if they're about to burst as my body scrapes up every last bit of oxygen inside. My eyes tear up from the strong gas in the room. I focus on not inhaling. My eyes just blink and watch Marina and Heidi hold their breath. They're both struggling as much as me. My lungs burn to inhale, but I force myself to, against every fiber of my being, to hold my breath and slowly let out the carbon dioxide out of my body.

It's about a minute later when it manages to hurt even more, and my knees start to buckle from the lack of air. I know that I'm about to pass out from oxygen deprivation and I'll end up inhaling this gas no matter what. It's all a lose-lose situation. Instinctively, and against my will before my foggy mind can stop myself, I'm taking in a deep breath. The air around me feels like fresh air in the woods, shouldn't it hurt? Regardless of the thoughts of it being poison, my lungs feel greedy and they are inhaling and exhaling deeply on their own command. It only clears the fogginess in my brain from the lack of oxygen.

My mind clears, and I'm inhaling the gas around me, yet nothing is happening. I can see through the fog that Marina and Heidi are now walking over to me and breathing fully. I wait for a few moments as we just breathe in this mysterious air around us. Nothing happens; I assumed that we'd be dead by now. But nothing has happened; it is almost as if this green gas is nothing but air.

I find myself walking out of the room and going downstairs. Everyone is standing and looking at each other in confusion. The green gas is deluding, and a thinner and lighter green has risen to the ceiling. I stare at all of them and match their shocked expressions about what happened.

"We were just standing here and this green gas just came floating in from the vents," John stutters.

I nod. That makes sense as to how the gas got in. Well, no, it still makes no sense. "It got us too," I say.

I look around the room. Everyone is leaning against a wall or couch and looking at me expectantly. My eyes land on Mark, and a distant look is in his eyes, almost as if he isn't all here. It turns my stomach at the thought. At that moment, I shift my weight and slight pain shoots through my ankle. It's really nothing, but it reminds me that I need to get away from Mark and his unstable eyes.

"I'm going to go back and rest my ankle. It's a sprain," I say as I point a thumb behind me, towards the staircase.

"Shouldn't we plan on how to get out?" Sarah asks.

I shake my head, "What can we do right now? The government has control of this. They've quarantined us perfectly. We can't do much until they contact us again."

Before more defeated expressions can look at me, I turn my body and walk up the staircase. Once in the room, I shut the door behind me and inhale in relief. There isn't some edging fear stabbing in my side when I'm in here, it subsides in here. I look around the room, and surprisingly, the green gas is barely visible at this point. Hm, that was random.

An unknown amount of time passes as I slump against that door. My mind buzzes and races, but literally, everything is out of my power right now. My eyes glance around the white room, and my charcoal skin from the chimney stands out against it. I might as well shower. So I do, I take the bandage off of my ankle as I scrub the dirt and smoke off of my body. Most people say they think about life in the shower. That's an understatement right now. I try to link the random gas to a person, but nothing backs up. I'm so immersed in my thoughts that I don't even realize that I've stepped out of the shower, changed clothes, redid my bandage, and brushed through my hair.

In a moment, I grip on reality to see that I'm resting against the white headboard of the bed and staring at the black TV screen. As my eyes bore into the black screen, my mind spins with thought after thought about everything and what I should do. Flashes of the cabin, the government official, and the gas all move like a slideshow in my brain. I sit straight up when it all pieces together. The gassing had to do with the government. They quarantined us, and right after they told us, at perfect timing, a mysterious gas that wasn't poisonous flooded the house. This thing is going to infect us. They're really giving a reason to quarantine us. Is it possible that the government is infecting us on purpose to really quarantine us? But…why?

My eyes stare blankly at the blank screen with shock. This whole thing is too shocking, and my thoughts are probably right. And I have no idea why. And I have no idea how to get out. I just need to get my mind off of it. I reach over to the bedside tables and I search through the drawers. I eventually find a slick black remote to the TV. I press the power button, there's probably no cable, hence the movies underneath.

I drop the remote when I see what I see. The screen shows thirteen people moving around in a living room as they gather around a TV watching a movie. But these thirteen people are the people I hiked with. My thumb anxiously skips around on other buttons and it flashes views of the kitchen, the game room, and the hallway outside my door. This whole place is under some surveillance. It pieces together in my mind, we were supposed to find this cabin.

The thought of being trapped and watched chills me to the bones. I find myself on the ground doing pushups. It's some sort of coping method I've had through life. The physical pain of pushups clears your mind about the emotional pain of life. It either makes you forget or think straight with a positive attitude. I do pushups for hours, until my muscular arms give out on me.

I go over to my backpack on the ground. I pull out the pocket knife that I was required to pack. I just need to occupy my brain to make myself feel less weird about being quarantined purposefully while being watched. I feel like there's a target on the back of my head, and I have amazing instincts. My hands grip my toothbrush, and I put the blade up to the dull end of it, and I cut at it until it is sharpened to serve as a shiv. That way I can defend myself while brushing my teeth.

After a few minutes of that as I sort through my racing brain, I store them back to where they belong. The door to the room opens, and I jump around. Marina and Heidi walk in the room and they look at me and sit on the bed. I pull myself off of my butt on the floor to join them.

"Why did gas come in the house?" Heidi asks after a few moments.

I blink slowly, "I think that the government did it on purpose. So they really could _quarantine _us. I think that the gas will infect us."

"How so?" Marina asks.

I lean back against the headboard, "Well they said we were quarantined earlier when nobody is infected. But then right after, the gas came in. It's going to do something to us so they can really keep us in here. For some reason, they _want _to quarantine us."

"This is so bad; we should've just stayed home." Marina says.

"Too late," I mumble.

"Why would they _want _to quarantine us?" Heidi asks.

I shrug, "They're the government. They hold the power. I don't know why, but they must have some reason."

"This is like some nightmare." Marina says.

My head shakes and I say, "Don't even get me started, look," I turn the remote on to show the empty living room.

I switch to the next channel and I jump when Mark's figure is standing in the kitchen. He searches through the fridge with swiftness, and right on cue, he turns back with food in his arms and looks straight into the eye of the camera. From the look in his eyes, I know that I was right to think he is mentally unstable, it's written all over his face. I rapidly change the channel one more time, and then proceed to turn the TV off.

"Why the cameras?" Heidi asks.

I shrug, "It beats me. Everything does."

"Mer," Marina whispers out in panic, whilst she stares in horror at something beside me.

I pay her no attention, and I keep talking. "All I know is that we're going to get sick from that gas."

"Mer," Marina repeats.

"What?" I exclaim.

"Holy Lord! Jesus! God Almighty! America! Good Jesus! Lord Baby Jesus! Sweet Baby Jesus!" Heidi shrieks out, and it'd be comical from her screaming out like that, but her tone and where both of their eyes are set, it causes me to not laugh.

My eyes follow their horror filled ones to my arm. It's just an arm, why are they freaking out? But then I look down my arm and to where my hand should be. It should be on the bed, but I see nothing. Nothing! Just the print of a hand pressing into the sheets is what I see.

My mind goes blank and air exits my body. I watch in horror as my hand is gone. But it isn't gone, I still feel it. I pick up my arm and wave it in front of my face. I feel the breeze on my face and hand, but I see nothing! NOTHING! A squeak emits from my throat, it is one of panic. I feel like I've seen a whole other world, and it crashes into my brain and makes fully fledged panic flood my whole brain and body. I can't think I can just feel the painful panic as my throat closes and no air rushes into my lungs. Choppy sobs exit my mouth as bile starts churning out of my stomach. This is pure panic, and it is attacking me like a bear. I've never truly been scared or panicked before, just one time in my life.

Images flash behind my panicked brain. They only make my fearful thoughts rip and spin around like the worst tornado ever. It feels like it destroys my brain as I blink away the images of my aunt and me. But it's too late; the only thing that I can even remotely grip on in this attack is the memory. Everything else in the world is a black sea of panic. I'm not in the room or cabin with Heidi and Marina anymore. My body is shutting down in pure fear, with the reality of panic in my mind that I cannot go on anymore. The only thing I see as black dots are in my eyes and tears slip down my cheeks, is the memory with my aunt on a day that made me feel similar to how I feel now. I try to grip onto the memory; maybe it will make this panic attack stop.

"_Aunt Katarina? Are we almost done?" I whined as we inched forward in the line._

_She smiled and rested her hand on my shoulder, "You're thirteen, yet you're acting like a four year old."_

_I pointed a finger, "Hey, Kat, be quiet."_

_The smile was wide on her face as we took a step forward. "See, only two people are ahead of us, I'll cash some checks. And then we can get ice cream!"_

"_I'm not a child, stop treating me like a four year old." I said with a smile on my face._

_And I think we may have had our usual niece-aunt banter. Well it wasn't usual, unlike most niece's and aunt's Aunt Kat and I had quiet the bond. She did live next door to us. So, yeah, I think that we talked more like we do. I can't remember to this day. I think I blocked it out. All I remember that happened next was the door bursting open to the bank. It let in a huge gust of wind that made papers fly. Everyone assumed that it was just the stopper to the door went out, and everyone ignored it. Nobody ignored the sound of a gunshot in the air._

_The first thing I felt was panic for my life when the shot went out. I had cable on my TV, I watched cop shows; I knew what was gonna happen. I was a kid; all I knew was to be terrified. The first thing I felt after the shot was my aunt wrapping her arms around me to block my back and my head with her body as she pulled both of us to the floor._

_The men walked around and demanded money from the bank, while they did so; they said they'd need hostages at gunpoint and in their hold. Like it was all to their agenda. They noticed me, a young kid, and apparently that's the best type of hostage with a gun to their head in the public. The lead guy sent out a guy to grab me, he was stronger than Kat, and he wrenched me from her arms. Her loving me unconditionally, she was stupid and jumped up to fight to save me. That was when I saw my aunt get shot right in the chest and die._

_Something broke in me, and everything was black from that moment. I don't remember what else happened but a few flashes of me having a fully fledged panic attack while having a gun aimed at my brain. I also remember another boy my age, getting taken as a hostage and his dad or guardian getting shot down just like Kat. The men got their money, and tried to take us to kidnap us for ransom. But once we were outdoors, the S.W.A.T. shot them down. And I collapsed on the cement in a world of panic._

That was the scariest moment in my life. It's the only memory I can think of as I experience another panic attack right now. And the memory of my whole body being broken from watching my aunt crumble to the ground in her death, only makes this moment even worse now. I think that through this unfathomable panic over my hand that has become…invisible, dare I say, I vomit all over Heidi and Marina. Because I think that they're touching my arms and trying to help me, I can't tell, all I can feel is the excruciating fear in my brain. I feel like I'm going to die. A scream rips through my throat before everything goes black.

** Wow. Two chapters in a day, well in America it's been two in one day, I don't know about everyone in other time zones. It just shows my lack of a social life and how fast I write. Sorry if the panic attack wasn't written well, I've had them in my life, and I hate thinking of them, so that's the best way I could put it into words. Well anyways, I know that it seems a little out of character for Six to have a panic attack over her hand being invisible, but she's a human in another world who hasn't faced the hardships that Book Six had, and Book Six knows that it's a legacy while Human Six doesn't expect random and awesome powers to pop up in her life. I mean, if my hand were to suddenly be invisible, it's reasonable to panic from that. So, yeah, I assumed it'd be acceptable in those circumstances. Thanks for all the reviews and support, you can leave more if you'd like! Thanks! :) **


	5. Chapter 5

** Disclaimer: Same, don't own it. Ahead of time, I know Marina's first legacy was the ability to breathe underwater, but in here it's healing. And in this story, they'll all only have one legacy.**

Chapter 5

My head spins in all directions behind the darkness of my eyelids. My whole body aches, my throat and eyes especially. A wretched taste sits in my mouth. The last thing I remember was having some freak panic attack…about my hand turning…invisible. This is all just too much to take in right now. This kind of stuff shouldn't be happening.

I slowly blink open my dreary eyelids to stare at the bright white ceiling. My vision is a little blurred, and I can vaguely see Marina leaning over me. I blink a few times until my vision is clear and I'm focused on Marina. She smiles when she sees my hazel eyes open, and through a buzzing noise in my ears, I hear her say something to someone else in the room. She turns back to look at me, and she asks something, but I don't hear it.

"What?" I force out of my throat and my voice squeaks loudly from being so strained.

"How are you feeling?" she asks.

"I've had better days," I grumble as I slowly sit up. "What happened?"

Marina glances around the room to look at Heidi who looks as if she's guarding the door. She looks back to me with uneasiness. She says, "You're hand turned invisible, you had a panic attack, and then you passed out."

"How long have I been out?" I question.

She looks uneasy again, "Not long."

"How long is not long?" I quiz.

She sighs and looks uncomfortably at the ceiling, "About five minutes."

My neck almost gets whiplash from whipping in her direction so quickly. Nobody just passes out for that long unless some sort of medication is involved. This is all so weird, and with all of it, my mind drifts to that gas. I shake my head, "How was it five minutes?"

She sighs again, "I think it was because of me."

"What did you do? Did you slap me or give me something?" I quiz as I jump to my shaky feet.

She nervously glances to Heidi who is currently looking at the ceiling. What did she do? What happened? My feet start moving on my own accord as I pace on the carpet, awaiting an answer from her.

"You were out for a little bit, while you were, Heidi and I took turns washing your vomit off. So about five minutes later, I touched your shoulders. And then something felt weird, and then you…woke up," she rambles.

"So you…think that you healed me by your touch?" I ask, incredulously.

She looks as white as a sheet. I feel as if I look similar. This is all a lot to take in, and I lean my weight to the wall. This is like some nightmare. I look to Heidi and then Marina, both keep their eyes on me. Neither seems as if they are going to talk.

"Has anything…odd happened to you?" I ask Heidi.

She shakes her head, "No, and I feel like I'm getting ripped off."

I shake my head and turn to look at Marina, "How sure are you that you can heal?"

"A good eighty percent," she says weakly.

"Hm, that's a B minus, good enough," I say, striding over to my bag.

I know I'm being reckless about this, but I need to do something to show that this is really happening. Me waking up right when she touched me isn't enough reason to link that to the gas. I need more proof than an invisible hand that reasoning could be because I'm an alien for some weird reason. That makes zero sense, but I need clarity. I pull out the pocket knife we were forced to pack as I pull my shirt off over my head.

"Mer, you're losing it. What are you doing?" Marina says, approaching me with a look of pity and fear.

I wave her off with no worry in my mind, but I did it with the hand that's holding the knife. So what was innocent on my end seemed dangerous to her, and she jumps back like a puppy that was just kicked.

"Seriously, what are you doing?" Heidi asks.

"We need to see if Marina's _thing _is real," I say with a shrug, as I poise the knife above the skin on my side.

"Mer, stop! What if it isn't real?! There's still a twenty percent chance that I'm wrong," Marina screeches.

"Marina, it's you, you underestimate yourself. It's probably only like a ten percent chance of not being a real thing. Besides, if it doesn't work, I can do sutures." I say.

As I said, this is reckless. I can't already be losing my mind from being in this house or from my hand going invisible. No, I'm just testing her abilities. I lightly place the tip of the knife in my skin and painful pressure sinks in. The skin rips and drags, painfully, for a good three inches until I pull the knife out and toss it on the ground. Blood gushes out of the deep cut and sends little trails down to the waistband of my shorts. Marina watches me in shock, and Heidi watches with a smirk of amusement.

"What are you doing? Fix it," I say, assertively.

Marina rushes over to me and gingerly places her hands on my cut. She looks down at her hands with concentration. Nothing happens for a bit and I prep myself to do sutures later, but that's when I feel it. Pain rips through the cut and my body in an icy form. I look down to her fingers that are touching the wound in my side that slowly closes up until the only trace is some dribbles of blood.

"No way!" Heidi breathes out, as she rushes over to us to get a closer look.

"I really didn't expect that to work," I say.

Marina looks as pale as a sheet as she sinks down to sit on the bed. This all is truly shocking. We're not crazy. Something is happening to us. We are truly infected now.

Heidi has her arms crossed, "Why isn't anything weird happening to me?"

She holds both of her hands out and concentrates on a spot with her eyes. She doesn't look like she's breathing, because her face starts shaking and changing colors. She flexes her fingers out.

"What are you doing?" I ask.

"I'm concentrating and hoping that something happens," she says in a strained voice.

I'm about to laugh at the ridiculousness of it, but all of a sudden, a vibration in the ground hits the wall in front of us. It makes the whole ground shake, and I fall to the ground. I feel through my whole body as the whole entire house shakes like it's a normal California earthquake. Heidi instantly puts her arms down in fear and it stops.

"What the-"Heidi breathes out.

The door swings open and cuts her off. It is the whole rest of the household. I don't pay them attention; I just pull myself off of my butt as I try to process. Marina can heal people, I can turn my body invisible, and Heidi can start earthquakes. My whole body feels numb from the shock.

"Are you guys okay?" Mark voices, as they all file in. "The whole house shook, but a bunch of ceiling tiles fell in the downstairs from where your room is."

I look to the group, which causes more shock and confusion to flood my mind. It's almost as if dam after dam is bursting with more shocks and twists in this dilemma. As they walk in, Stanley struggles with sweat on his neck as his feet accidently climb up the wall, like he is doing everything in his power to stay on the floor. John is sweating profusely and a bright light shoots out of his hands and he hides them as much as possible. Joseph changes from a human to a bear to an octopus and then back to a human again. They're all in pain as they try to remain normal.

_What's happening?_

The small and familiar voice rings out in my brain. My jaw almost drops as Ella's voice rings in my head. She's talking to me…through our minds! This is crazy. It isn't just happening to Marina, Heidi, and me, it's happening to others. I look to the others, and to some weird surprise, they all look completely normal. It reminds me about Mark's recent antics, he can't know about this. I remember that he just asked a question.

"Uh," I shake my head, "yeah we're fine. It must've been some California earthquake."

He shakes his head, "I know. How's the ankle?"

I clear my throat; I really don't want small talk with him. I need to talk to the others that are experiencing the same thing is me. I just need to make an excuse, "Sore. I should probably get more rest."

"Do you need any help?" Mark asks.

Now I need a lie, to get the four to stay. I look up to the ceiling to make it look like I'm considering his question, but I think of a solid excuse to bring the four in. Got it! My eyes level with John's fearful ones, Stanley's confused ones, Ella's shocked one's, and Joseph's surprised ones. They all get the message from my look, but to them they look like they've been caught and they look even more scared.

"John, Joseph, Stanley, you all look pretty muscular, I need your help for strength," I lie.

"Can I do anything?" Mark asks.

I shake my head, "Just you three."

"Okay, I'm going to go take a nap." Mark says, and a weight is lifted off of my chest when he walks away.

The rest of the people start to go away as the three stay in the door. I need a way to get Ella to stay, but I can't think of one. Thankfully, Heidi understands, "Hey, Ella, let's bond."

Her reasoning is worse than mine, but we've got what we wanted. The four stand with fearful glances at the doorway. I limp over to the door and close it. It's a bad approach, because they all look terrified and sweaty. Super sweaty. Almost as if they're suppressing their powers.

I plop down on the bed, "Calm down. Heidi caused that earthquake."

"What?" John grunts out.

I focus hard on my hand, and I, thankfully and quite oddly, turn it invisible. All their jaws drop. It's still a lot to take in on this end too. They're all really pale. All of us are taking this terribly. It just makes zero sense. It's understandable to feel this way when something crazy happens. It's almost as if we've seen another world.

"I can turn myself invisible, and Marina can heal wounds. I saw everything that happened to all of you," I say.

Their shoulders sag down in relief as they catch their breath that they were holding. Ella's the first to actually talk in their relief, "So you're on our side in this?"

"Of course, that's why I kept you all in here. We all need to talk about this," I say.

"How did this happen?" Stanley says, rather loudly.

"It has to do with that green gas. I've linked it together. Whatever it was, it poisoned us, and this is the outcome." I say.

"How did the gas even get in here?" John asks.

"I assume the government has something to do with it, since we were quarantined when nobody was really infected, but now we're actually infected. All of their reasoning doesn't add up. The only thing that makes sense is what that gas did to us, and now we have an actual reason to be quarantined," I say.

"But from this gas that's keeping us quarantined, we've gotten awesome powers. We can use those awesome powers to break out," Stanley says.

I never thought of that before. Now that we are stronger than before with some sort of advantage, we may now be able to outsmart the quarantine and break out of the house. Heidi could probably break a wall down in this house from her earthquakes.

"Heidi could start an earthquake," I say.

"And then-"Stanley tries to add, but the TV turning on by itself starts him.

The same government official sits in front of the camera. He looks even more stressed as he straightens his expensive tie. He clears his throat and says, "From the oxygen levels in the house, we have determined that you've all been poisoned with radiation. This is now a huge issue and we are extending the quarantine until it fades, which that timeframe is unknown. We are also making the quarantine heavier, giving two layers on steel on the house to make it indestructible. You all can't leave until it fades so you infect nobody else."

The screen turns black and silence rings in the room. So much for the earthquake idea. So much for thinking that we could actually break out. The only thing I believe in what that man said was that we were poisoned with radiation. That must've been the green gas that gave us these…_things_. But that doesn't settle me at all, because there's a new problem on my hands. The original part of the quarantine was impossible to break out, they are changing it to be infinitely so. It's full proof for us to leave. And I feel like radiation poisoning doesn't just…go away. We're truly quarantined now. And now we're never going to get out.

**And end of chapter five! Sorry this was a lot shorter than others, it was just strained on my part as I wrote this. But I pushed through to finish this. But…what are they going to do now that the quarantine just became even more impossible to escape? We'll learn more later… when I write it. But, stay tuned. And as I say as always, thanks for the reviews and stuff, and you can leave some more…only if you wanna! :)**


	6. Chapter 6

** Disclaimer: I don't own anything.**

Chapter 6

Its two days after the announcement of our radiation poisoning that I master my invisibility. I can turn my whole body invisible and anything I touch. It's the only way that I leave the room now, when I'm invisible, because to everyone in the house, but a few of us, think that I'm bedridden from a terrible ankle sprain. But it isn't even that bad, I'm just dragging this out as long as I can, because now my trust for everyone else is gone. I only trust the people who have these strange powers, and half of the house doesn't have them. So this sprained ankle is helping me hide out.

The seven of us train a lot, but it's never all together. They usually have to hang out downstairs with the rest of the group, who just watches TV and act like they're all friends. I would know, I watch them on the TV, and I can see any sanity in Mark's eyes is slipping at an exponential rate. So their system is at certain time points that I've planned, they say they'll go check on me. And then once they get up to my room, the two of us will train. I usually have to guide and push the others, out of all of us; I have the best grip on it. And it's usually John that I spend the most time training with, he struggles the most.

It's about two weeks after the announcement of our infection that something strange happens. I'm sitting in my room and watching the TV of everyone in the living room. In about an hour, Stanley is supposed to come up here. But out of the blue, I see Sophia jump to her feet. And say that she's going to check on me. She exits the view of the camera and I scatter on the ground to grip my pocket knife. I close my fist around it to hide it and I jump back into the bed and change the channel to some action movie.

A light knock sounds on the door and it opens a few seconds after. She has bright blue eyes that stay locked on the ground as she walks in with timid steps. I don't say anything; I just wait for some confrontation about what I'm doing. It surprises me when she sits at the foot of the bed.

"I'm not stupid by any means, no I'm quite observant. I saw what was happening to the guys and Ella when we rushed to your room. And when you brought the four of them in, I knew that you were experiencing something too," she says.

I keep my fist under the blanket, but in an instant the knife flicks out. My posture is rigid in defense as I say, "What's your point?"

"I trust that you're a good person in all of this," she says, sincerely, which makes me pause for a second in confusion. She continues, "And since I know that something is happening to you, I can tell you that something is happening to me too."

The knife retracts, and I drop it onto the white sheets. I try to glare at her to see if some mask will break from the pressure, but she just looks at me innocently. I stick my jaw out to mask any shock that someone else was experiencing symptoms. To my surprise, she matches my look and gives it back.

"Prove it," I say, defiantly.

She steps off of the bed, and she sticks one hand under it. I let out a cough in surprise when she lifts the whole entire bed completely – like bedspring and all. I look over the side to see her standing at the end, even though the whole bed is even, her arm is extended straightly as she holds the bed with one hand. She starts getting cocky and holding the whole thing with one finger as she switches them with a smirk on her face.

"Um, put me down," I command.

The bed lightly hits the floor and I look to see a smile on her face. I crawl off of the bed and match her height, although I'm a bit taller. I cross my arms and make the knife in my hand evident as I say, "How can I trust you?"

She crosses her arms, "I'm trying to get out of here, and I know that you want that too. I also know that Hannu and Maggie are experiencing this too."

"That's not trustworthy, you are outing your friends," I spit back, immediately and boldly.

She shakes her head, "No, I'm giving you information, so we can work together. I trust you so I'm giving you information."

"Fine. What are their _things_?" I ask. I haven't given a name to the powers yet.

"Maggie can fly and Hannu has extended senses. And if you haven't noticed, I have Super Strength," she states, boldly.

"Fine, be here at midnight. Be quiet, if someone but us catches you, don't bother showing up." I say and walk back towards the bed.

She nods, "Good, I knew I could trust you." She walks towards the door and turns back to say something, "Oh, and by the way, if you're going to pull a knife out to intimidate someone, maybe you should actually whip the blade out."

My jaw drops as the door closes behind her. So much for thinking she's quiet and shy, she's as confident…as me. This will be fun to work with. I flip the TV back to the living room and I see Sophia sit back on the couch. I still doubt her, and I'm ready to beat her up if I have to. She may have Super Strength, but I did _boxing _in high school, not to mention that she literally will not see me coming.

"Ugh, you should see the bruise on that ankle. It's such a bad sprain, I feel so bad, she's going to be bedridden for awhile," Sophia voices to the group.

She instantly gets my trust from that. She's lying, the bruise is barely there anymore, but it's good that she's lying. She's diminishing suspicions of the others. This is good. I've just gained three more people.

I watch the TV for awhile, and I wait for Stanley to show up, but he doesn't. When it is the exact time, he doesn't get up. I watch in fury and in shock for the next two hours as he sits within the group like it's nothing. The rest of the group also shoots him glances, what is he doing?

"Well, I'm going to give her ankle a look," he says.

He's four hours late. I'm already on my feet from pacing, and I wait for the door to open. He strolls in and I cross my arms. "What took you so long?" I bellow when the door closes.

"I didn't want it to be suspicious, are you okay? Why'd she come up here?" he asks.

I sigh, "She's experiencing stuff, and so are Hannu and Maggie."

"Well that's good," he says.

I shrug, "Yeah, but it still makes no sense as to why the four others haven't experienced anything yet."

"Maybe they're like Sophia, they're just scared to tell us," he says.

"Cut the bullshit, it's not that. Something's up," I say.

He rolls his eyes at me, "Well fine, let's get to training."

A few hours after training with Stanley, Marina and Heidi come into the room. I look to my watch, its 8:30 at night; I guess that's acceptable to go to bed. But in all reality, we'll do what we usually do, we'll talk strategy.

"We've run out of food," Marina says.

"What?" I ask, completely in shock.

"The fridge is empty and everyone's packs are empty," Heidi chips in.

Great, another problem to add to our list, I think, sarcastically. I search through my bag and find the last scraps of food in my bag, which is some sugary snack that I snuck in. It barely serves the three of us, but we make the most out of it. I tell them about Sophia and how I invited them all at midnight. That's something else that we all do. Our whole group meets in my room at midnight, because I go out invisibly and bring them all here. Me making Sophia and her group go visibly is a test to see if they are really going to be on our side.

Midnight slowly rolls around, and I make my trip out to the others to escort them here. We wait for about ten minutes, and I doubt that the others will show up. But after another twenty minutes, there's a knock on the door. It swings open after, and all three of them stand there. We all smile at each other and wave them in.

We all sit at different ends of the room as I speak, "Now that all of us have truly developed this, we can rule out the other four of having them. There's something fishy since they weren't 'infected,' I say that we can't trust them."

"Why can't we trust them?" John asks, a little defensively. I'm not blind; I've seen him flirt with that rich girl, Sarah, from the TV. I don't support it.

"It's a little odd that nothing's affected them, there's something fishy. They must've done something with the gas, or they played some part with the green gas somehow," I rebuttal.

John stands up, "Or maybe they're afraid to say something. Or they haven't shown symptoms yet, some may develop at different rates. I mean look at Sophia, Hannu, and Maggie, they _just _joined us."

He makes a good point. I'm too hungry and tired to argue it, maybe he has some point. I shrug, "Fine. Right now, it doesn't matter. But the ten of us need to make an alliance, so we know to stick together through all of this."

"Yeah, and to break out of this place and kick government ass!" Stanley says.

I point at him with a smile on my face, "Definitely!"

"Any names for this alliance?" Joseph asks.

I search through my mind in the silence of the group until something hits me. I smirk at them as I say, "We got here from the damned Loric Trail, but I want nothing more than to get back to that sign, because it'll be a sign that we're out of this cabin. So let's name our alliance after that sign. We're the Loric."

A lot of excited murmurs of agreement sound in the group. It makes a smile cross my face at all the hope radiating in this room. From the looks on everyone's faces, I know that in some way, somehow, we'll get out of here and get back to that sign.

"Yeah, and it beats calling ourselves Trail instead," Joseph jokes.

The whole group laughs, and then we spend the next hour strategizing ideas. After the meeting and me taking everyone back to their room, I consider going to bed, but I'm not really tired. Besides, that room is making me go stir crazy. So I travel silently down the stairs, maybe from there I can raid the kitchen for some scraps of food.

I stop in my invisible tracks when I see Sam standing in the kitchen with his back to me. He looks normal and trustworthy from here, maybe it's just Mark that we can't trust. For some reason, lost in my train of thought, I accidently lose the grip of my invisibility. And the first thing I do when I see my visible self is swear rather loudly.

Sam spins around at my voice, and he smiles when he sees me. "Are you some stranger? What are you doing in my quarantined house?" he jokes.

I smile as I fake a limp into the kitchen. My lower back leans against the counter parallel from him. He has a smile on his face as he awaits my response. I shrug and say, "I'm looking for some food, rumor has it that we've ran out."

He nods, "Well actually, the fridge is stocked now. I guess it's some freaky government way that they got food in here."

"Wow that was quick," I voice.

He smiles, "Yeah, or it was just aliens."

I laugh at his joke as I nod, "Yep, you definitely hit the nail on the head."

He gives me another big smile as a comfortable silence overtakes us. His eyes look really sincere, he seems trustworthy. We could be friends, he could join this alliance. He leans over from where he's standing and he lightly taps my forearm, "Its Meredith, right?" he jokes.

I roll my eyes, "I'm not even going to answer you. I just came here for food."

"And my friendship?" he jokes, yet again.

"Of course, that's what I've been hoping for ever since we were trapped in this hellhole," I respond, with a sarcastic smirk.

I pull a box of food out of the cupboard right by me. Sam looks at me with an intrigued glint in his eyes. "Yeah, you know what I find very…interesting and entertaining about being trapped here?"

I shrug, "That nobody's found us yet?"

He smiles, "No, I personally enjoy seeing everyone's change in character and their reaction from being locked in here for so long. It's very intellectually entertaining to watch their sanity slowly change."

His words hit me like a bus. So much for friendship. This dude…this is weird. A chill finds its way up my spine and into the pit of my stomach as it sits there like a heavy weight. He just told me that he enjoys watching us all go insane. I try to not let my jaw drop or show any surprise or disgust in my eyes. The silence in the room makes it seem as if it is taking all oxygen away from me.

"Um," I say, and I hold up the box of food. "I found some dinner. I'm going to rest my ankle."

"Yeah, Six, 'rest.'" He says to my back.

My feet rush quickly to the stairs as I try to do anything but run. First the comments about enjoying watching us go insane, but then he knows I'm lying about locking myself in the room. And he called me Six, what the hell does that mean? Does it have to do with my hiking number?

It feels like thousands of years until I reach the room. I lock that door in an instant. Marina and Heidi are already asleep in the bed. I can't eat anymore, my stomach is turning. I place the box of food on the bedside table. There's no way that I'll sleep either. I turn the TV on and I watch the empty living room, and then the empty kitchen, and then the empty hallway. My gaze lingers on the hallway, because I see a shadow at the end. I watch the shadow come closer and closer to the camera. It's a male, definitely. But I can't tell who it is from the hood on their head. I realize that they're approaching the closest door to the camera, and that's when I realize that the camera is right by the staircase. This guy is coming to _my _room. My body turns invisible as I watch him jiggle the doorknob on the screen and as I watch the doorknob jiggle in person. All oxygen has deflated at this point, but I let out a breath when he gives up on the locked door and walks away. I watch the blank image of the hall until Marina and Heidi wake up.

The two of them go downstairs to the rest of the group, and I watch the image or everyone in the living room. I try to look for anything odd in Sam, but he seems completely normal. Maybe he's just some psychology major who didn't intend harm. I just don't know. All I know is that I can't trust anyone who isn't in the Loric alliance. I'm telling them all at the meeting tonight to trust none of them.

The day passes slowly, and it feels like years until it is our midnight meeting. After I gather everyone, I stand in the middle of the room as they all look at me expectantly. This is going to be hard to break to them. I know that John likes Sarah. And that Heidi likes Adam. And that Ella and Sarah are friends. But this may be our lives on the line.

"We can't trust anyone out of this alliance," I start.

"What?!" John exclaims.

I tell them everything that happened with Sam. And then I tell them of the shadowy figure trying to come into our room in the middle of the night. Some people's faces drop in horror others twist in disgust. When I finish the story with such great detail and emphasizing on the importance…all hell breaks loose.

"Just because Sam and Mark act weird doesn't mean that we can't trust everyone," Heidi says, with a snotty tone that I've never heard before.

"Yeah, Sarah hasn't done anything weird to try and hurt us. And Sam is my best friend, maybe you're imagining stuff. Like him saying that and the shadowy figure." John says.

"Are you trying to claim that I'm going crazy?" I say to him. Anger floods my veins, and I feel a hand on my shoulder to calm me down. I know its Marina; she's done this too much in my life. But nothing can stop me when I'm angry, "How about we take a moment to realize who pointed out this house in the first place? Sarah. And I didn't imagine Sam calling me a number and scaring the shit out of me! I'm not going crazy."

"I know Sarah; she wouldn't do anything to harm us. We can trust her and everyone else, just maybe not Mark," Ella says.

I shake my head, "No. I understand that they _may _be good people, but we should worry about our safety more than anything. We just shouldn't talk to any of them until we're out of here and in the real world."

"I'm sick of you thinking that you run all of this and that you think everyone without a power is trying to hurt us. You're just being paranoid. I'm not going to deal with your crazy; I know that Sam and Sarah are great people. I'm done with this alliance; I'll survive this on my own!" John yells, and his words hurt, I don't act like I run this. I'm just the assumed leader.

"Yeah, and Adam is a great person! I'm done too!" Heidi yells, "John wait up, I'll go with you." And then she follows John out of the open door and into the hall.

That starts a movement of people grumbling about me being a "bitchy dictator." I stand there in shock, we just started this alliance and it's all over, because of a couple of people who are shady. I look to the small group of people who stayed by my side. Marina, Sophia, Stanley, and Joseph stay in the room with defeated expressions as they look at the door. The only thing that gave me hope about my survival and a way out of here is gone.

** And the Loric alliance is already broken, oh dang! Well, I'd like to hear all of your opinions about who the shady person in the hallway is, what's up with Sam, and about the alliance, because all of it is just going to get so much crazier! Thanks for all of the reviews; they really help me keep on writing. :)…and you can leave some more, but only if you want! Thanks again! :) **


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. **

Chapter 7

"Let's just call it a night," I say to the remainder of the group. They all nod at me in an understanding way. I nod back at them, "We're canceling training during the day, it seems too suspicious to everyone else. We'll still meet at midnight, though."

"Are you going to still stay up here during the day?" Sophia asks.

I shake my head, "I guess it's too suspicious for us now. Let me take you all back to your rooms."

I reach for Stanley and Joseph's hands, but they retract their hands when mine near them. I give them a confused look, "What?"

"I don't think that it's a bad idea to go back to our rooms, since some of broken alliance is there," Joseph states.

"Yeah, I agree." Sophia says.

"Fine, but we need to wake up before everyone else. Okay?" I say.

Four sets of nods are sent my way. This is such a sad excuse for an alliance; we can't even face the others. It hurts to see that even Heidi would leave the group, I thought we were becoming good friends…I guess not.

I settle into the bed alongside Sophia and Marina. Joseph and Stanley are taking watch by watching the cameras on the TV and sitting by the door. My head hits the pillow and thoughts sprint around in my mind. I don't sleep, and in the middle of the night, I offer up to watch and Joseph goes to sleep. It leaves Stanley and me sitting by the door while we watch the empty images on the screen.

My mind races about everyone that's gone. I had so many ideas about how to get out from those people. Mainly the loss of Heidi and John is going to hurt us the most. Heidi could've used her earthquakes to knock something down in this house. John could've started some fire to burn the wall down with his Lumen. We agreed upon calling it that one day when he and I were training alone and a TV show was playing in the background and a girl on the show had that as a name. I think it was the show called _Dexter_, which is quite unsettling since he's a killer and it makes me realize that people here may be capable of that if they start to go insane.

"What are you thinking?" Stanley asks, snapping me out of my thoughts. "I can practically see the gears turning in your brain."

I shrug, "About the others and how much harder it is going to be to get out."

"We'll find a way," he says.

"I was also thinking of what everyone here is capable of. People are going to start going insane from being stuck in here for any longer," I say.

"My money is on Mark for turning into the psycho killer!" Stanley jokes.

I let out a weak smile, "That will probably end up being true."

We both smile at each other, but then something catches in the corner of my eye. I whip my head to look at the TV to see the same shadowy figure standing outside of my door with his ear to it. He was listening. I practically crap myself in fear of it. Stanley looks up at the TV too.

"Shit," he mutters.

At least that means John is wrong, I'm not going crazy. I pull out my useless iPhone off of the bedside table. The battery is green and full, and no sign of service is there. I hold the phone up and snap a few pictures of the TV screen. I can use this as proof if we need these people to come back to our group. After I take a few pictures, I shove the thing in my pocket and watch the image in horror. The guy doesn't move. I quit breathing until he slowly walks away and out of the camera view.

Stanley and I don't talk the rest of the night. It's understandable after the confrontation with the shadowy figure yet again. We just stare at the TV with no people in the screen. My mind spins the whole time, until my watch shows that it is six in the morning. Everyone still sleeps, but this is the best time to go downstairs so nobody suspects that we're all together. Stanley and I wake the others up, and we all travel downstairs together.

We all silently settle into the couch and switch the TV on. It's like there's a tiny village in my throat and I can't swallow at all. It all just feels so weird in here. I excuse myself to the kitchen, but they're convinced of the buddy system, so Marina follows me in.

"What are we going to do?" she asks in a panic.

"Marina, we don't talk about it out here," I whisper.

She leans against the counter in defeat as I search through the cabinets. As a box of cereal is gripped in my hands, I notice something on the countertop. A yellow paged notebook sits there. Written in messy scrawl is something that I really don't want to see.

_Subject Six has taken role as the leader. The Subject is paranoid and isn't mentally decelerating like the others – so the others doubt her._

Other messy scrawls sit there, dancing on the page and mocking me. It has a list and description of 'Subject' and a following number. It clicks together in my mind now; this is why Sam called me Six. I'm a subject in this quarantine along with everyone else. The numbers on our nametags were for this. Is this some experiment or something?

"Hey what are you two doing?" An angry voice rings in my ears, more like bites.

It makes me jump at the sudden presence and who is. My stomach turns; this might as well as be Mark's notebook. I don't know, but I hide it behind the cereal box in my grip. I hug it to my chest so the notebook is sandwiched between the box and me as I spin to look Mark in the eye.

"I was grabbing some breakfast," I say. He nods at me with a scowl and it turns my stomach. I can't stay down here with the notebook, so I continue, "But I'm taking it to go. I need to rest my ankle."

Marina looks at me with a shocked expression but I don't acknowledge it. I just nod and walk past them and out of the kitchen. The remainder of the Loric watches me in shock as I walk up the stairs. I just shoot them the "I'll tell you later" look. Thankfully they notice it and they don't shoot any further questioning glances.

I settle down in the room and refrain from slamming it shut. The door clicks quietly as I lock it. I toss the box of cereal far across the room sending oats all along the floor. It is honestly the least of my worries. My legs launch myself on the bed as I grip the yellow notepad in my hand that feels like acid on my fingertips. I flip the pages between my fingertips and on each page a messy scrawl fills every inch of the long paper. The whole first page has short one or two sentence long sentences describing subjects one through ten.

_Subject One has taken the role of anger and envy. She is seen most nights wandering the place muttering angry things to herself and punching the walls; she's easily the symbol of rebellion against their leader._

_ Subject Two has taken to reading in the extensive collection of books in the cabin. Sometimes she tells others that it helps her forget; other than that, she seems fine mentally._

_ Subject Three keeps up a happy facade. His actions though show that he is slowly "losing it."_

_ Subject Four has confided in a girl without powers, and he latches on to forget. He suffers insomnia and wanders the house and sulks at spots for hours._

_ Subject Five observes the others much. It's all she does._

_ Subject Seven cries a lot._

_ Subject Eight spends most of his time with Seven calming her and himself._

_ Subject Nine is much like Subject Six, they are fueled by this. They are only getting stronger._

_ Subject Ten helps everyone else. She hasn't shown many signs of psychological decreasing._

It takes me less than a second to latch every "Subject" to the people with their nametag number. That leads me to realize that Mark gave out the nametags, yet Sam was talking about psychological stuff like this notebook. The Loric Numbers are victims, this notebook shows. We can only trust each other. I go on to read all the other pages that go into depth of each subject with at least ten page long reports of each. I take a picture of each with my phone. I need to find the others who broke away from us for the reason of the powerless ones, once I show them these; they'll join in a heartbeat. A few hours later, I've finished the in depth notebook to look and watch everyone on the TV eating lunch. I need to rid myself of this wretched notebook tonight, holding onto it puts me in danger and it sickens me.

My minds races about who to link this all to, this psychological thing shows that this quarantine was indeed on purpose. Somebody must be linked with the government, with the intent to get us in here with no way out only to watch us mentally deteriorate. So somebody who isn't Loric has a connection with the government, it could easily be Mark for obvious reasons. One being that he leads this group. It could be Sam for saying that he finds watching us mentally crumble entertaining. Or it could be Sarah for pointing this cabin out.

I turn the TV off as I force my mind to stop. This is getting crazy; this quarantine that happened on purpose for some reason is putting me in danger. Something is going to happen and my life is probably on the line. I throw the notepad, which is like poison, onto the ground. My racing and plotting mind has me investigate each picture with too much precision. I look for any smudges on the notepad as a sign of left handedness, but there's nothing. I look for any girly symbols, but I find nothing.

The door opens when I'm in the middle of looking at the pictures. It's the Loric, well the new Loric. They close the door after them, and I look to the watch on my wrist. It's long after two in the morning. I passed my whole day doing this, and the fact that I haven't eaten hits me like a brick that makes my mind swirl and pain pinch in my stomach.

"We made sure that we were the last to go to bed, so we wouldn't draw suspicions for being all in one room." Sophia announces as they close the door after themselves.

Stanley jumps on the bed, which causes me to bounce on the mattress from the weight change. He props himself up on his elbow and he sits close to me. He reads over my shoulder to look at the screen of my phone. I shield it out of his view. I need to tell them another time, when I'm not hungry or tired.

"So why'd you go back to our room?" Joseph asks by the doorway.

I look up from my phone as I turn the screen off. Sophia sits on the edge of the bed. Joseph and Marina remain standing close together. Their arms are touching, and Marina smiles at the ground. I'm glad Joseph is here, he's keeping her sane in this terrible time.

"Um," I say in response. "I need to go downstairs."

I jump off of the bed and I snatch the yellow notepad off the floor. I grip it tightly in both of my hands as I hurry towards the door. Marina grabs my arm as my hand grips the handle, "Are you sure that that's a good idea? What's that notepad by the way?"

I shove her hand off of my arm, "I'll turn invisible, and I'll be right back."

I don't answer her other question. If I tell them, they won't let me leave. So after I say that, I turn my body and the notepad invisible as the door swings open. As quietly as possible, I close the door behind me and I rush down the stairs. This needs to be fast. A chill creeps up my spine at the thought that my every move is being watched. I shake my head at myself, I'm invisible, and nobody can see me. My shaky hands set the wretched notepad on the counter in its same place as this morning.

And then my racing mind along with the racing adrenaline in my veins sends my legs flying on the ground. I'm in the room fairly quickly. Once the door closes, I sink down to the ground. My lungs burn and move quickly to inhale oxygen as I watch Sophia, Marina, and Joseph sleep in the bed. The bathroom door is closed; Stanley must be showering or using the bathroom. The tiredness of the lack of sleep as of late sends my eyelids to get heavy. Against my will, in a few seconds after I sank to the floor, I sink into unconsciousness.

A center of pain in the back of my skull pounds as the pain spreads like water. My whole skull feels like it vibrates from the blow of whatever just hit me. The pain makes me want to sleep again, but when I feel rough hands on my wrists and my mouth lets out a loud groan, I realize that something terrible is happening to me. My eyes snap open, which makes the pain in my skull worse, but that's the least of my worries. I see the darkness of my bedroom, Stanley lies on the ground, unconscious, with blood pooling around his head and matting in his hair. My body is thrown in the air and over a strong shoulder in one movement and it hits me. This is the shady figure. I suddenly remember that I didn't lock the door after I came in.

This could be me being pulled into my death. I try flailing my limbs to hurt this strong person, but my arms are tied behind my back. And my legs barely move; my thoughts and movements slosh around from being hit in the back of the head. But I'm desperate; my legs still kick around like a fish's body does right before it dies. The only furious and damaging thing I can do is dig my teeth into the sweatshirt-clad shoulder. It makes the male grunt out in pain a few times as he carries me closer and closer to death.

I black out a few times as I struggle in his arms until I feel my body hitting the cement ground. I look up in the shaded room to look into the shaded face of the hooded figure. He slowly backs away from me as I watch him in shock. My tired eyes follow him until he flips a switch on in the room. Bright light floods the room and it makes my headache worse. I blink a few times, until I see the face of Mark James staring back at me. It is the most single handedly evil look I've ever seen it makes my heart stop and bile move rapidly in my throat.

"I know what you're doing," he starts in an unrecognizable voice.

My tied up hands fumble along in my pockets. It's painful, but this will be great evidence for the group. It's discreet enough, I think as I start to record his next movements. I should be terrified, well I am, but I'm still functioning and trying my hardest. That day in the bank has made do that. I shrink back as I look around the white room. Sharp weapons and chains reside in random places, it's a torture chamber. Am I out of the house?

"I know what you're doing," he repeats. "You're plotting against me. I've heard you. I've seen you!" His eyes flash dangerously. "You need to stop that, or I'll kill you."

_You need to stop that, or I'll kill you. _Those familiar words ring in my mind, but they're attached to another voice. Mark keeps talking along the same lines of his threat, but all I can focus on is the memory. The memory of crying and screaming and squirming in the man's arms at the bank after he killed my aunt. I screamed for Katarina as the man whispered those words in my ears as he dug a gun into my head.

Those moments in the bank makes my mind spin as it replays over and over again. It makes my breath quicken and the panic spread through my body like painful hot lava. I shove my phone back in my pocket as Mark approaches me with a knife. I don't know how long I panicked over my memory with my aunt, but I snap out of it when Mark gets closer.

"Try one more time, and I will kill you," he says.

He lowers the knife and I expect to die, but he cuts the rope off of my wrists. The skin feels raw along with all of my fears in my brain. He's barely backed away by the time I've jumped to my feet and nearly pushed him over. I don't know when I started crying, but foreign tears run down my face as I sprint towards the door. I slam it shut behind me to see another door ahead of me. I pull it open to be looking at the living room.

I don't stop though, I start running. I run with tears streaming down my face and with my phone bouncing against my hip. The memory is raw in my mind along with my fear. Mark's threat to kill me races through my brain, which causes me to run faster and away from him. I have to get back to my room and away from Mark before he can catch me and kill me.

**So…sorry for the lack of updating. So, life got in the way and you know, I'm only human, not superwoman, so…yeah, life got in the way. On another note, thanks for reviews. And some of those reviews ask about different POV's or Six's romantic future. All I can say is that I'm sticking to Six's POV, because it suits this story better. And for her romantic future, there will be someone, you'll just have to read and find out who that someone is. :) So…that's that. Thanks for the reviews, favorites, and follows. I really appreciate it. More reviews are lovely and welcomed. Chapter 8 will be up sooner than this one :)…I hope. **


	8. Chapter 8

** Disclaimer: The same as the usual, I don't own anything, just my ideas.**

Chapter 8

My feet carry me in a blind haze. The stretch to my room seems never ending, almost as if my sprinting away from that torture chamber is getting me nowhere. It is haunting; my life is on the line now. The thought of that makes me try to run faster than before. I don't risk looking over my shoulder as I race through the shadowy house and up the stairs. I have no idea if Mark is chasing me.

My legs and lungs burn more than they should as I raise my knees high to get up the stairs in seconds. Once I make it up the stairs, I'll be right by my room. I can go in there and I'll be safe.

I make a loud ruckus as my feet slip on the stairs. I'm coordinated enough to grip the railing tightly before I can tumble down the stairs. My knees hit the edges of the stairs hardly and I feet tissue move and get pulled in ways they shouldn't as my bones bruise from the impact. Blisters will probably cover my hands later from holding onto the railing from crashing down the stairs, since I'm running so fast. Against the screaming pain in my knees, I get my footing on the stairs in a second and I race again. I watch my feet this time as I sprint.

The stairs come to an end, and I smile to myself as I look up. I look up just in time as I run into a body. It is a hard and muscular body, so the impact of it makes my head spin. Panic hits me just like my body hits this one. It must be someone else trying to hurt me. It gets worse, as on instinct, two hands grip on my lower back. It may be to keep me from falling back down the stairs, but they may be trapping me. The lust to live fuels my veins as I struggle in this male's arms. I try to scream out for help, because there is only a wall in between my roommates and me. But one of the hands flies off of my back as my mouth lets out a squeak and that hand covers my mouth. He's silencing me so he can take me back. I bite furiously at his hand as I squirm in his strong grip and I try to elbow my way out.

The only sounds are my muffled grunts and his heavy and struggling breaths. That is until after a few panic filled moments, I hear him say, "Mer. Mer. Calm down."

I pause my defensive movements at the familiar movements. And a moment after realizing who it is, my elbow manages to dig itself in his ribs. He pulls his other hand off my back and holds it under us and a light blue light fills the room. The semi-comfort that it isn't someone trying to hurt me makes me stop completely. John pulls his hand off of my mouth and I look from the slight hue of blue emitting from his hand and up to his face. The blue light casts small shadows across his face and extenuates his bone structure. He lets out a breath of relief when our eyes connect.

I shove his chest, which makes him stumble a bit away from me. "What the hell, John?! Where you trying to scare the shit out of me?" I bite out.

"I was…" he struggles and trails off. He just grabs my hand in defeat and pulls me behind him. I'm so in shock of everything that I tiredly follow him down the hall until he stops at a door and pulls me in it right after him.

I look around the room with the white walls. It's small, smaller than our bedrooms. A small black couch sits in the middle, parallel from a large TV that takes up the whole tall wall. John leads me over to the couch and we both sit down on it.

"Are you kidnapping me or something?" I quiz.

"No," he says, waving both his hands in the air. That's when we both realize that he's still holding tightly on my hand, as my arm moves in the air. His cheeks turn red and he drops it in an instant. The red on his cheeks makes my mind whir, and I remember small flashbacks of seeing him before. "No," he repeats nervously, "I was wandering around the house; I do it more than I like to admit."

I want to respond with saying that I know, because of the notebook. I just nod my head instead, "Go on."

"I heard you running, I saw you almost fall down the stairs. You looked disoriented and scared. I knew something was wrong, especially when you didn't see me and when you ran into me." He looks around, "This is just another living room, I guess. I brought you here to see what's wrong."

I cross my arms, "Why do you care, you broke our alliance?"

He scoots closer to me, "Our new alliance is a bust. But besides that, I can still care for you. I just want to know what's wrong."

I open my mouth and close it. My ears perk up at their new alliance; he's making it sound like he wants back in. John's dark blue eyes aim on me as he watches my facial expressions, and my inability to speak about what just happened.

"Okay, you don't want to talk about it. You're fall looked rough, how are you feeling?" he asks as he leans over and grabs my ankles to prop my legs on his lap.

"Um," I say in surprise at his sudden movements. I look up and he smiles at me. Is he flirting with me? I thought he was oh so smitten with Sarah. Whatever, I don't care. I look down at the tears of skin on both of my hands, and I say, "I'm fine. Nothing big."

He lightly traces his fingers along the bruises forming on my knees. "Okay, well that's good. So what were you running from?"

I look at the ceiling. I don't know if I should tell him, but it is for all of our safety. The edging discomfort sits in my stomach as I stick my hand in my pocket. My raw hand fishes around in the baggy shorts that Stanley lent to me that are way too big. John's hand rests on my bicep, which makes me stop and look at him. His eyes are trained, with an unreadable expression, on my wrists. I follow his look and see that the skin is red and is bleeding in various spots.

"Mer, what happened?" he asks, concerned.

"I, uh," I stutter and look to the door. Once my eyes land back on John's concerned ones, it should all spill out of my mouth. But I don't tell him everything about Mark; instead I ask him, "Do you want back in the Loric alliance?"

"What?" He asks, astounded.

"I have to trust you to tell you," I respond immediately.

He nods, "Fine, yes."

I pull my legs off of John's lap. I cross them and square my shoulders. That's when I let the entire truth spill out. I describe every single detail of Mark's kidnap of me and his threat. After that, I go into depth of telling him of the shadowy figure being Mark. And then I tell him about the notepad. After I say it all, I toss the phone at him and he looks at everything I told him.

It's probably a half hour after I gave him my phone to look at the evidence when he drops the phone onto the couch. I watch his face carefully as he looks slowly around the room with shock displayed on all of his features. Eventually, his eyes land on mine and he takes a deep breath.

"Wow," he says, speechless.

I'm about to say something about how we all need to group together and get out. But John launches himself forward and he tightly wraps his arms around me in a tight hug. Totally thrown off guard, I tentatively return the hug. I pat his back awkwardly. He must be scared, and I don't know how to comfort him. I don't even know how to comfort myself in this situation.

"What do we do?" he asks into my shoulder.

His question is more of an irrelevant one, so I don't answer. My tense shoulders relax and I just sink into his hug. My mind races and flashes of a little girl with raven hair hugging a blonde boy fill my brain. I close my eyes and try to grip on the memory of John, which explains why he's familiar, but that's as deep as my memory goes.

After an unknown amount of time, John's grip loosens. He pulls back slightly and so do I. Our hands remain loosely on each others' backs, and our eyes connect. The air feels charged at that just from the look. And before I realize it, John's face is getting closer and closer. And that's when I realize that I'm leaning in too. Our lips meet in a soft kiss. It's great, and I didn't even realize that I wanted this. But it just feels right. It's comforting and I forget about the world outside of this room.

After a few moments, we pull away and look at each other in more shock. I'm the first to break the loaded eye contact by standing up and nodding at him. I grab the cell phone off of the couch and I grab my phone. "Okay, well let's all gather together. You get your people, I'll get mine. Let's meet in the usual spot."

He nods and stands right after me, "Okay."

We go in separate directions once we leave the room. I go into my room with an extra pep in my step. Once I enter though, that bravado collapses. Stanley still lies on the ground, unconscious. I rush over to the bed and wake everyone, and I command Marina to heal Stanley. They're all disoriented and tired as she does.

A small knock sounds on the door, and they all get in defensive positions as Stanley slowly comes to. I hold my hands up and I signal them to calm down as I open the door. John stands there and he smiles at me as his tired alliance stands behind him with irritated expressions.

"What are they doing here?" Stanley bites out as he slowly gets to his feet.

"I'll explain, let's all just get in here so I can close the door." I say.

They all shuffle in the door and I lock the door behind them. I look to the group of nine before me. They all look tense, except for John who just smiles at me. I don't say anything. I just pull out my phone and show them the pictures of the shadowy figure outside of the door and of the notepad. And then I show them the video of Mark threatening me.

Once it is all over, they are enraged at Mark. Ideas spark in the room about getting out. They're all excited, it's good. I tuck my phone back in my pocket as the group says conspiracies amongst each other in hushed tones as they wait for me to speak.

"So it's clear that we're here on purpose and somebody is working from the inside," I state. Everyone nods and I say, "So we should just keep our guard up around everyone else."

"I guess you're right," Heidi says to me with an apologetic expression.

Silence fills the room. This is what I wanted, we're all together again and we're ready to fight. But it still feels weird. Some of these people are still strangers to me. I lean against the wall and look at all of the expectant eyes. None of us are close whatsoever. And if we aren't closer, we won't trust each other. And if we don't trust each other…well what kind of alliance is that?

"Maybe we all need to be closer for success," I say. "How about we all tell each other stuff about ourselves?"

"That's a good idea. We'd actually work better together if we knew each other better. It's an actual fact," Sophia says.

"Look at the little fact girl." Heidi says, "I'll go first, by our 'subject' order," she says sardonically. She looks around the room as she searches for something to say. She holds up her finger when the idea hits her. "The reason I was on this hellish hike in the first place is because I live my life to the fullest. The reason I do that is because I almost died when I was fourteen. I had cancer in the spine, it was bad and they didn't expect me to live. But I did, so from there on out I've done stupid stuff to actually _live_."

Her confession is flooring. And silence sits in the room as we all soak in the shock of Heidi's confession. It actually explains a lot about her. After a few silent moments, Heidi speaks again, "Uh, Maggie, you're up."

Maggie looks up, still in shock from the serious fact about Heidi. She clears her throat and says in a soft voice, "I was orphaned, when I was twelve. Well, more so I was a baby when I was _orphaned_. My uncle was my caretaker until I was twelve. He died in a bus accident. From there on out, I bounced around in orphanages and foster homes."

Hannu speaks right after Maggie, "That's actually where we met. I was in the same home as her and Sophia." The room is silent, and Hannu speaks again, "I actually got a basketball scholarship at our school, but that's probably gone since I'm missing our workouts and stuff since we're quarantined in here. John you're up."

John clears his throat at all the heavy confessions of our group and he says, "Um, I moved around a lot as a kid. The only time I didn't move much was when I was a young kid and I lived next door to Maren Elizabeth. Our parents were friends."

_That's _where I remember him from. He was familiar because we were friends as kids. It's quite ironic that we're here and together again.

"Um, I think Hannu and Maggie have summed it up for me," Sophia says. "I was in the same boat as them."

The whole group looks to me. I guess I'm up. I clear my throat as I know the exact thing to say to them. It's just a vague version of the shooting at the bank and how I watched my aunt die. The words of the story feel bitter in my mouth. Speaking of it is like reliving it, and it makes my stomach turn.

"I was the little boy at the bank with you," Stanley says. "They did the same thing to my uncle, they tried to kidnap us."

Oh, I'm surprised that I didn't recognize Stanley from the start. It may be because I have tried so hard to block everything out. I must've just blocked Stanley out of this memory in general. A lot of that day is fuzzy, and it's because I made myself remember it like that.

"Dude, you went out of number order. It wasn't your turn," Heidi jokes to Stanley, which makes the atmosphere in the room a little less depressing.

I look over to Marina; it's her turn to reveal something about herself. I know what she is going to tell, I had to live the experience with her. Just not nearly as bad. I do what a best friend should do, and I lay a comforting hand on her shoulder as she starts to talk.

"I lived with my Aunt Adelina from a young age. At some point in my life, she just lost all purpose in her life. She was like a vegetable and I had to take care of her and myself. I was just a kid. It lasted for years, and I almost considered not going to college because of her being on her own. But she eventually found someone in her life to help her find a reason again," Marina breathes out.

That is the simplest description of it. In something smaller than a nutshell. What Marina had to suffer with taking care of her aunt was terrible for her. I remember how bad it was for her. The whole group seems a tad confused, but Marina can't talk anymore. She stares at the ground with an upset look. Thankfully, Joseph comes to the rescue, and he pulls her into a tight hug.

"Um, so I'm up," Joseph says. "My caretaker, Reynolds, left me for some girl, Lola, when I was quite young. I've mostly been on my own since then."

Since Stanley talked earlier, Ella is next. She sits on the bed, and she looks so young. It's sad. She says, simply, "My Papa Crayton is the only person I have in the world, and I'll probably never see him again."

Her confession is the last and it hangs in the silent air. It seems as all of us voicing all of our catastrophic upbringings has pulled us all together. A new bond sits in the air along with Ella's words. For some reason, hers stick to me the most, because they're real. We're probably never going to see all the people we love again. Yet there's also hope in the air, because we're stronger together and I feel it. And now, I can place my trust in all of these people. We're the Loric. And now we're going to find a way out of this cabin in the desert and a way back to our homes.

**So…not my best this chapter. But the back story of everyone is kind of necessary to connect this to the series as much as possible and so they aren't all strangers and stuff. It just seemed needed. And…BOOM, Mer and John, so random, right? I figured there was some romance needed, it won't last long though, and romance in **_**this**_** story isn't **_**that **_**relevant. And trust me; next chapter will be more exciting than this one. We just needed a calm one. But, yeah, thanks for the reviews and stuff. :) You may leave more if you want. :) **


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: The usual – I don't own anything.**

Chapter 9

My feet shuffle slowly along the floors of the living room. It is dead silent in here. I assume it is the middle of the night. I can't really tell since I'm invisible so I can't see my wristwatch. I look over my invisible shoulder and see nobody there. Paranoia has become a part of me. After what happened with Mark, it has become an instinct and a part of me to look over my shoulder and think that everyone is out to get me. Even with my own alliance, the people that broke away had to work for my trust. It's been a month since we've all gotten back together, and they've just gotten my trust. I remember that right after we all joined together, Heidi and I spoke for hours about how she wanted my trust and friendship back. She even said that I could punch her in the face if it would regain my trust. Eventually I did punch her in the face, and that sent Heidi along with everyone that broke away from our alliance to do anything for my trust.

These overall six weeks of being trapped have sucked all the trust out of me. Now my only trust is the reluctance of my alliance. The only person I truly trust with my life in this house is Marina. That's because we've faced over a decade of friendship and confiding in each other. Our trust hasn't budged since we've been trapped, something about her terrible upbringing and me seeing my aunt die has just make the bond unbreakable.

Over the past month since the alliance came together, I spent all my time being normal with the whole household. They are the most terrifying hours of the day as we all lounge around and pretend everything is okay. I catch Mark glaring at me a lot, but other than that, he acts as if he didn't threaten my life and kidnap me.

A lot of days are blurry. The idea of sitting in the presence of the people that my trust will never be in is exhausting. It's terrifying too. So the fact of doing that, the hours blur together. Still some days I go to the living room upstairs for a short time, because that isn't suspicious to the people that I see as the enemy.

So the time being trapped in here hasn't mentally ruined me like others. I'm just super paranoid and I lose some track of time. Everyone else…well they're getting really bad. I can't say much for Mark, Sarah, Adam, and Sam because I don't pay much attention to them or spend much time with them. But the Loric alliance…well being trapped with no sunlight or a way out can make a person go insane, and some of them are slipping.

Like some days, I go up to the living room upstairs or into my room and I find Marina with a vacant look in her eyes as she balls her eyes out. I have to sit by her side for hours and console her until she comes out of the fog and is lucid again. The time trapped in here has made her upbringing as a child like PTSD for her. She breaks out in random times from having flashbacks of having to care for her aunt after her uncle died and she screams and cries. This house is ruining her. The fact of being locked with no way out and the fact that the government is against us and our lives are on the line, it makes sense to start losing your sanity. The only thing that keeps Marina somewhat sane is Joseph and I.

Stanley and Heidi, well they've changed from being trapped. They've just went in the opposite direction of Marina. They get angry at everything. It's like at the drop of the pin that they become hostile. I catch either of them at times, and they are angry and alone and swinging at walls. It's just like all grip they've had on their anger has dissipated.

Nobody is like drooling on themselves and talking to themselves or anything. The group is just changing a lot. It's understandable. This is solitary confinement in some sort of technicality. Well its worse, it's like a mixture of solitary confinement and the Hunger Games. The rest of our alliance just gets really upset easily and freak out for no reason. It's like everyone is taking their first step towards insanity. Well, except for me. This has made me think clearer and work my hardest to survive. In this fatal situation, my mind has been calm and kept straight. It's just the way I function, I guess.

The person that I worry about the most and fear for them, because their mind is declining quickly is John. He sulks a lot…A LOT. It doesn't matter where he is; he seems to forget what's on the line and his boundaries. He just fades out of conversation or cries in front of anyone at any time. I think he is suicidal and depressed. The only thing that keeps me stable is walking around, invisibly, at night. And more than once, I've caught John sitting at the kitchen table and staring at a big kitchen knife in his hands. And then I end up talking to a vegetable for the whole entire night. It's especially gotten worse ever since I've rejected him.

I sit on the arm of the couch in the living room as my mind zooms back to the memory. It was the day after our alliance reconciled.

_I flipped on the camera on the TV when I heard a knock on the door at eight in the morning. John stood by the door with a smile on his face. I turned the TV off and opened the door. _

_ He smiled brightly at me, "Hi."_

_ I look over my shoulder at Marina, Ella, Sophia, and Heidi sprawled around my room and sleeping. We had some sort of girl sleepover the night before. I stepped out of the room and closed the door behind John and me so I didn't wake them. "Hi," I said._

_ "Can we talk?" John asked._

_I shrugged, "Sure."_

_ He nodded and led me down the hall into the living room where we shared a kiss the night before. After we closed and locked the door after us, I sat on one end of the couch. When John sat right next to me, my mind flashed about how a relationship shouldn't be on my list of priorities while locked in a house with a target on my head. I jumped off of the couch right when the thought hit me._

_ "What?" John asked at my sudden behavior._

_ "What did you want to talk to me about?" I asked him._

_ "Well after last night…" he trailed off. "I just wanted to define what this is."_

_ I crossed my arms because I don't want to be the one to reject him. It doesn't seem like a great thing for me to do, by crushing someone else's spirit while we're all locked in here. So I simply said, "What were you thinking we should do?"_

_ "I was thinking that we could," he looked awkwardly at the ground, "I don't know, just be dating, you know?"_

_ I hold a hand up, "I'll stop you there John. Last night, I did what I did because I was in a scared and vulnerable state about being threatened about my life. So…what happened between us was a moment of weakness."_

_ "So you regret last night?" he asked, weakly. A sad look adorned his face and it made my stomach turn._

_ "Not that so much just that right now is a really bad time for a relationship. It's a bad thing to have on my list of priorities. We shouldn't have to worry about each other and a relationship when we have to worry if we'll ever see the outside world again or live to see tomorrow or ever see our family again or wake up on Christmas morning or-"_

_ John cut my very logical rant off by standing up and holding his hands up. "Okay, I understand it meant nothing to you. You don't have to act like a relationship is an object or give me a pitying speech about what's happening," he started walking towards the door. "It meant nothing to you, so since that's what you want, we can pretend that it meant nothing."_

_ "Don't make me sound like the jerk!" I yelled as his hand gripped the door._

_ He spun around, "Well you kind of are. You're rejecting me; you don't even care how much it hurts."_

_ "Well you kind of are the jerk in this situation. I mean, you left our group since you liked Sarah _so _much! But then you find me in a situation and you act like you've been in love with me all this time. Well, no!" I yelled._

_ He opened and closed his mouth a few times. But he really had no argument. He simply stormed out of the room with a sniffle accompanying him._

I sigh at the memory. John since then, well he's just gotten worse mentally. But when we all meet, he acts like nothing happened with me. So I should be relieved about it. But it's still unsettling. It's unsettling for me to hurt someone else when we're already being hurt so much. I sink down into the couch as I hold my invisible phone in both of my hands.

The silence makes my ears ring. The silence makes me kind of forget the reason that I came down here. I mean, I do this a lot. It just clears my mind; it feels like I'm going for a walk. But that isn't the reason that I came down here tonight. No, I was doing something else earlier tonight when something happened that made me feel like a huge douche yet again.

_I was doing a workout video at midnight in the upstairs living room. I needed a break from talking Heidi out of punching the poor teenager, Ella, in the face, and I needed a break from Marina's crying. It's like I'm the punching bag of all their emotions that they can't control. Well _sorry _I'm the only mentally stable one, I think sarcastically as I do pushups along to the trainer yelling at me on the TV._

_ The door creaked open, and I jumped to my feet in defense. My shoulders relaxed when I saw Stanley standing in the doorway with a cocky grin on his face. He winked at me as he closed the door behind him. I returned to the video as Stanley sat down on the couch. He made cocky remarks to me the whole time as I finished the video. Once it was over, I sat down next to him on the couch, sweaty and out of breath._

_ "Nice work, Champ." He said._

_ I wiped the sweat off of my face along my shirt, "Thanks." I looked over at him and he had a wide grin on his face as he looked at me with admiration. I'm not blind; I could see that he is attracted to me. I just ignored it. A relationship is the least of my worries in this house. "What are you doing in here?" I asked._

_ He shrugged and bumped his shoulder with my sweaty one, "I just came here to hang out with you, Sweetheart."_

_ "Oh we're back to Sweetheart again," I grumbled as I leaned forward and gripped the water bottle on the table._

_ I gripped the water bottle and I let out a gasp as I did so. That's because I felt Stanley's hand rest comfortably on the small of my back. My spine straightened at the touch as I sat back up. "What are you doing?" I asked while shrugging his hand off of my back._

_ "Mer, stop acting like you don't see it. We should just give it a try," he said with a calm and cocky grin._

_ I shook my head, "Nope. No we shouldn't."_

_ He shrugged, "But we should. It's like some sort of fate, I mean we met once in a life changing event and we both survived and met each other again. And…I mean our subject numbers put together…it's a sign."_

_ I know its Stanley's personality, but his innuendo about our subject numbers made me cringe. I frowned from that, "Um, first off, gross." He smiled cockily. "Second, it could be the same with John after all. Like I said to him, I don't have time for a relationship."_

_ "Wait," Stanley said with anger in his tone as he held his hand up, "John? You two?"_

_ I shrugged, "We kissed, but I rejected him. Like I'm going to do to you too. It's for the best. We shouldn't have to worry about a relationship in a time like this."_

_ "Wait," he repeated. "So you and John? I thought you were interested in me. You flirted with me all the time."_

_ "Well, it's some sort of reflex of mine, I guess. I flirt with anyone male without intending to," I responded._

_ Stanley looked angry. It made sense; anything sets him and Heidi off. With it simply put that I want nothing to do with a relationship, I walked away from him before he could yell, and out of the door._

I set my phone down on the couch next to me to see what time it is. It turns visible once I let go. I sigh; my encounter with Stanley was two hours ago. These guys just need to realize that I don't have time for a relationship. Why are they being so relationship hungry? I mean, we have more to worry about right now.

I do a double take when the screen of the phone that says something other than the time that makes my heart soar at the thought. I let out a huge breath when I see it again. My heart beats faster as hope lifts all of this pressure off of my chest. It feels like I can breathe again from the single bar that is in the top left corner of my phone screen. Somehow, I've found service in here. If there's service, I can call someone to help us!

My invisible finger unlocks the phone and goes into the home screen. I don't want to mess up the service, so I carefully click on my last phone call, which was with the bartender that I work with, Luke, the night before I left for this hike. The screen shows that it's dialing. I lie on my side as I listen to the constant ringing. I think nobody is going to answer, since it is two in the morning. But on the last ring, I hear rustling in the background.

"Hello?" A tired voice asks after a few moments.

"Luke!" I exclaim excitedly and too loudly. Right after I say it, I slap a hand over my mouth.

"Oh my God!" Luke's voice says as he wakes up quickly. "Mer? Maren Elizabeth?"

"Yes, oh my God." I say in disbelief.

"I thought you were dead, I even called your family and told them that you went on a hike and that you haven't returned," he says.

"I'm not dead; I need your help, Luke."

"Anything, where are you?" he asks.

"I'm in danger. I've been quarantined in a cabin in the desert on the Loric Trail by the government." I spit out quickly and quietly.

It surprises me when he chuckles, "You're funny. Stop joking around though, where are you?"

"Luke, I'm not joking. I'm serious. We went on the hike on the Loric Trail. Look it up, on the hiking club link on the university website. I'm not lying, it's there, and I looked at the link the night before the hike. We hiked the Loric Trail, and there's a cabin on that trail. We went in it and the government quarantined us. I'm in serious danger. I need your help, Luke."

The desperation in my voice must convince him, because he says, "Fine. I'll check the website. If it's real, I'll know that you weren't joking. If you aren't joking, I'm going to hike that trail and help you out. You sound terrified and being there for six weeks sounds scary. You must be in serious danger. I'll help you. If not, this is some sick joke, Mer."

"Thank you," I say sincerely.

"I'm going to check right now, bye, Mer."

The call ends and a giddy feeling has filled my veins. I grip the phone in my hands as I race up the stairs with lightness in my step. I've never been more thankful that I flirted with the bartender at my work than now. I open the door to my room where the whole alliance sits there talking amongst each other. They all look up at me as I turn visible. I lock the door behind me with a huge smile on my face. Marina smiles instantly, because she understands from the look on my face that something great has finally happened.

"Guys, I just contacted somebody on the outside," I say.

A lot of people say the word what in shock and happiness. The happiness radiates in the room and I smile even wider. "Yeah, I've contacted somebody else, and we're getting help. Guys, we're going to get out of here."

**Dang. Did you see that twist of finding a small sliver of service and contacting her co-worker? Well I did, because I planned it, and that's the whole reason she mentioned him in the first place ;). And please don't be mad at Six for turning down all these boys, but it will pop up later in the story, she's just being who she is because a relationship in their situation seems illogical to her. But if it seems like they'll all get out soon, well I'll say that there's 5-6 chapters left to this story. Well, thanks for the reviews and stuff :). And more reviews are welcome :D.**


	10. Chapter 10

** Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

Chapter 10

It's hard to sleep after the happy news for once. It's near time to wake up anyways. Everyone in the Loric alliance was ecstatic and demanded details. Basically it was hours of all of us discussing and being happy about what's to happen for once. My legs itch to walk around and go back to that spot with a small sliver of service. And after a long anticipating moment of just hearing the snores of my roommates, I turn my body invisible and I grab my phone. I close the door behind me and I travel down the stairs with still noise in the air.

The living room is completely deserted. Good, I think. I sit down on the exact spot of the couch and I let go of the iPhone and place it in its exact spot. After a few moments of moving the phone around inch by inch until service pops up, I lean back against the couch and stare at the screen. After a few moments, a notification of a new message pops up on the screen. I lean over and slide the icon so the messages pop up.

It's from Luke. It says: **I checked the website and you aren't lying. I'm leaving right now to hike the trail. My brother's a cop, and I told him of the situation. He said something about the fact that he can't do anything yet, or something that he can't do anything until tomorrow if you're still gone. I couldn't wait though, I just got to the trail and I'm starting to hike it. If for some reason you can text back, where is this cabin? And stay strong, I hope you're ok.**

I grip the fabric of the couch tightly. Why would he tell a _cop _about it? The government obviously knows and has more control over the situation rather than a cop. I shake my head at myself. Luke is risking everything to come out and help. He made a slipup, it's understandable. I look around the room when I poise my finger to type. A loud creak emits from the staircase. In a flurry I type back like some idiot who can't follow the rules of English.

**12 hr. hike, follow the trail, it's str8 & plowed in. Follow it. Thnxs 4 what ur doing.**

I send out the text with terrible grammar and I grip the phone to make it invisible along with me. As quiet as possible, I rise off of the couch and look at the stairs. It's Stanley barreling down the stairs followed by John. I let out a breath over being scared of nothing. Still, not wanting to confront feelings or anything, I slip past them and up the stairs.

I close the bedroom door behind me. All of the girls of the Loric alliance are spewed out on the two mattresses in the room. The night that we formed back together, we agreed to have all the guys sleep in one room along with all of the girls in another room. Just for safety. So after we formed together, we snuck a mattress in here.

I climb over Maggie's legs and I set my phone down on the bedside table along with several other phones. The phone says that it's just six in the morning. Sleep is out of the question. Hanging out with John and Stanley is also out of question. I travel over the seas of sleeping bodies and I go into the bathroom to take a shower.

Once I finish showering, I change into a black tank top and a pair of one of the guys' khaki shorts that they hiked in. Although the fact that I have to tie a belt tightly around my waist to hold them up, I keep them for the deep pockets that girl shorts simply do not have. I shove my phone in the pocket along with the toothbrush shiv and a broken piece of the fire poker. I also have a few granola bars in case I need to hide in a place with no food for awhile. Or something.

I realize when I finish changing that Marina is no longer in the room. Since I have taken place of basically a mother for her lately, I turn invisible and venture out of the room in search for her. The first place I look, I find her.

She's sitting on the small couch in the upstairs living room. As I approach her, I notice that she is staring at the TV with a blank and vacant look in her eyes. I try not to groan at what this house is doing to her. I sit on the opposite end of the couch with stiff posture.

"Marina?" I ask.

She doesn't hear me. A part of me wonders if she's still sleeping, like maybe she's sleepwalking. But deep down I understand one of the many other reasons we need to go out. Marina – the most caring and sensitive person – is crumbling from this house. We need to get out, and one of those reasons is that I need my best friend to be okay. I slide down the couch and sit right next to her. She blinks, which is something. I place a hesitant hand on her shoulder and her head snaps in my direction. It's like staring into two empty and lifeless holes. The severity of it slaps me in the face, and I feel my sanity start to slip like I'm losing some of my grip. We just need to get out of here.

"Marina, come on don't do this," I whisper, and if anyone else were here, I'd deny how weak my voice sounds in the silent room.

She blinks a few times, but she still doesn't care. No, she's not insane. Nobody is insane, yet. She's just suffering right now. This isn't normal by any means; her mental strength is just weaker than everything.

"Marina, come on. It's Mer," I plead.

"Maren Elizabeth?" Her voice asks, distantly.

I nod excitedly, "Yes it's me."

She blinks a few times and then looks at me like she just woke up. Maybe she was sleeping. She looks normal and functional like always right now. But that's the thing, her thing, she just dazes out sometimes.

"Is Luke here yet?" she asks.

"No, but he's on his way. Don't you worry, we'll get out of here," I say.

She looks down at the ground and tears fill her eyes, "Okay."

"What's wrong?" I ask. There are so many answers to this question, but it seems necessary to ask. It seems necessary for her to tell me what I can do to help.

"This house," she answers. "With nothing else but this house, it makes me remember everything. My aunt. You know?"

I nod, "I know."

Marina looks at me, "I know in the version of the basics of the story it all seems so black and white. My uncle died and my aunt was a depressed vegetable of a person. And I had to keep her alive and take care of her as I grew up. But then when I was old enough to go to college, she met a guy and she's better now. And by a guy I mean God and that she's better now because she's dead because some guy killed her right when she was starting to get better. So yeah, I get that to you and everyone else it seems basic. But it's just destroyed something in me."

I nod, "I know, and I can't really do much to help you. So I'm sorry."

She shakes her head, "I shouldn't even complain to you, what happened with you and your aunt was worse."

"It's made me who I am," I respond simply.

I could remind her that she watched her aunt die too. But I think for her, its like how I forgot Stanley was in that bank. She has blocked out the fact that she was with her aunt when some man killed her for her wallet. She and I have had a lot put on both of our plates and life is just hard to swallow. But we can't really compare about who gets to grieve more over whichever upbringing was worse.

With nothing to say to help console her about how to cope with being raised the way she was, I stand up. I say, "Luke's going to get us out of here, and then we'll get the help that you need."

I look over in the doorway and I'm surprised to see Joseph. He nods at me like he can stay here. I nod at him as I walk right by him. He must've heard everything, because he looks at me with appreciation and he keeps looking at Marina, who is sitting on the couch, with a sad look that is almost tangible.

I touch his arm as he starts to walk towards the couch. He stops and looks at me. "Take good care of her," I say.

He smiles and nods, "Thank you." He pauses and smiles, "And if I hurt her, I know, you'll beat me up?" he jokes.

I smile and shake my head and say sincerely, "I know you won't."

Joseph walks down to the couch and sits next to Marina. In an instant, he's embracing her while she cries. I watch in the doorway with a smile on my face. He's good for her. With some satisfaction that somebody is making my best friend feel better, I turn on my heel and close the door behind me.

My body stays visible as I go downstairs to join most of the household on the couches. I great them all like I just woke up and showered, because of my wet hair. Nobody questions me. I'm relieved when the four powerless ones don't give me another look when I tell everyone good morning. I sit down next to Maggie on the couch. A TV show about doctors fills the screen. It should capture my attention because of my major so I can decipher what is medically correct and not, but the only thing that fills my mind is the heaviness of the iPhone in my pocket. My fingers itch to pull it out and check to see if Luke has called or texted to tell me if he's almost here or not. My common sense keeps me from doing so, even though I want to.

Hours of mindless chatter and TV later, I outlast many people on the couch as they all go to bed. When most people go to bed, it leaves me and a few Loric. I can trust them. So I go to the spot on the couch with service and I pull out my phone. I set it down in its place and many texts start to roll in, all of which are from Luke.

**7:11 a.m.: Two hours into the hike. Nice grammar by the way.**

** 1:00 p.m.: Eight hours in, hungry and tired. But pulling though. I'm starting to lose service, so hopefully the next time I talk to you; I'll be there saving you.**

** 9:59 p.m.: Maren Elizabeth, shit, you're in deep shit. At five-ish, I saw the cabin in the distance, but military vehicles surrounded the whole thing. Men with guns were approaching me before I even noticed the cabin. I claimed to be an innocent hiker and I got out of being killed and I ran back down. I'm sorry that I ran away. I finally got service again, so I just updated you. Call me when you can.**

I look at the time on the clock now, and it's around midnight. He's probably still hiking down. I'm scared for Luke and all of us. It makes me sick that someone outside of this wall is making sure that I'll never get out. Luke can't even save me now. My real hope of getting out was another dead end. I dial his number and lie on my side and put my ear to the phone.

He picks up on the first ring, "Mer?"

"Yes, I'm sorry." I say.

"You're sorry? I should be the one who is sorry. I couldn't help you and you're in danger. What should I do to help you?"

I shake my head against the phone. "Nothing, Luke."

"Nothing?" he asks. "Should I at least call the cops to help?"

"No, the government has more control than the cops. Just tell your brother that I'm fine. You don't need to be known by the government and in danger. I'm not putting you in danger, I'll think of something else to get out. Thanks for helping though, I'll be forever grateful." Before he can argue, I hang the phone up. No matter how much I want to get out, I'm not a terrible person; I won't put him in danger like this.

I look to the few Loric members around me. They all have defeated expressions from listening to my call. The phone rings a few more times, they're all from Luke, and I ignore them all. I give the group a defeated look, and they all understand that I don't want to deliver this news to the rest of the group.

All of them stand up and start to walk past me with slumped shoulders. Stanley touches my shoulder as they walk past. I wait for the sound of the shoes to stop on the staircase before I turn invisible. I shove my phone in my pocket and I pace around.

My mind whirls in circles. I'm now back to square one. But I need to get out. Its hours, I assume, of me pacing back and forth with ideas racing ramped in my brain. It should feel creepy and eerie walking around in the silent house with a target on my head and hopelessness in my veins.

I give myself credit. I'm intelligent and I know that there's a way to get out of this situation where we have nothing, all with the idea that those four are linked to the government. Small dents have found their way in the ground from my shoes pacing hardly in the same place for hours. My mind makes progress and a certain idea sticks in my brain about how to get out. It develops and it ends with us getting out. A smile makes its way on my face as I make this plan full proof in my brain.

Everything is in place in my mind when Hannu comes down the stairs in the morning. I turn visible and usher him back upstairs in my room to wake everyone up. With that, I gather every single Loric alliance member in the room. They're all groggy and sleepy. But I'm ecstatic and more awake than ever, because I have planned a way to get out of here.

"Luke was a bust. But you guys, I've figured it out. I know how to get us all out of here," I say.

Discussion arises, and I go through every play by play of this plan until my watch shows that it's been an hour. In that hour, we all know the plan that is going to go in play tomorrow morning. Tomorrow morning, we're going to go through with the plan and get out of here.

**So, yeah. On the note of Marina, I thought that that was as good as stuff could relate to how her relationship and upbringing was with her Cepan in the book. So yeah…I was all vague at the end of that. What do you guys think the plan to get out is? And do you think that the plan will work? You guys can leave all of your answers and ideas in your reviews. Thanks! :)**


	11. Chapter 11

** Disclaimer: I own nothing…like always.**

Chapter 11

My invisible feet move silently and with expertise down the hallway upstairs. It is the day that our plan is going into play and my mind spins with many emotions about this outcome. The steel pipe that Sophia ripped out of a bathroom, due to her Super Strength, rests heavily in both of my invisible hands. My thumbs move along the small rusted spots on the steel pipe, it's reassuring in some way. My knuckles flex in anxiety as I approach the first door that I'm assigned to go to. Once I turn that handle there's no backing out.

_"See, I know that most of you have ties of some sort with the four others." I said to the group last night as I started to deliver the plan, "But in some way, they have ties with the government, it's the only reason that they didn't get infected. It may not be all of them, but we have to be safe."_

_ "What are we going to do with the four others?" Heidi asked._

_ "We'll use them as bait."_

My right hand grips onto the pipe with much strength as my left hand silently turns the handle. The door creaks open and my breath stays stuck in my lungs as I wait to see. But the room is empty. I step inside and close the bedroom door behind me that's when I hear a shower running in the adjacent bathroom. Although I'm invisible, I still stand beside the door and wait for it to open so I can go through with the plan.

After a few minutes, the bathroom door opens and Mark emerges. He wears basketball shorts and a cut off shirt. I wait for him to take a few steps into the bedroom before I make my move. I swing the pipe high above my head and deliver a heavy blow on the back of his head. He stays upright, and I assume his eyes are full of confusion. So I continue my movements two more times until his body slumps to the ground with a heavy thump.

I crouch down next to him to make sure that he is unconscious. He is. So I stand back up, and leave the bedroom. I close the door behind me, and I slide a table beneath the door handle in case Mark gets up. I look down the hallway, and the table moving is the signal for all the guys who peak their head out of my bedroom door. I pause by the door as they all rush forward with hiking ropes in their hands, and they all storm into Mark's room to tie him up.

Again, I move forward. This time to the room that has both Adam and Sam in it, this one will be a bit harder. I slowly sneak into their room, to thankfully find Adam still sleeping on the bed. The bathroom door is closed, and I assume that Sam is showering. I'm quick to deliver heavy blows with the pipe on Adam's head to really knock him out. The bathroom door opens, and Sam emerges. He looks right at me, but he can't see me. Everything to him looks normal, Adam looks like he's sleeping and like the room is empty. My feet tiptoe around the bed and towards Sam as he opens up drawers in a dresser. I pause when I notice him shuffle through many notebooks. It's shocking and it makes me swing even faster. With the strength I use, it doesn't take much time for him to fall to the ground, unconscious.

I leave the room with the same signals, and I watch the guys go in the room to tie the guys up. My next and last target is Sarah. It's simple by now, and she's the easiest to hit on the head. She's simply sleeping and I get the job done in seconds.

I return back to my bedroom after knocking all four of them out. I turn visible and drop the pipe on the ground. The girls look at me expectantly and I just nod at them, like I've done my job. A few smiles are sent my way as we wait for the guys to get back from tying their wrists and ankles together. It's about five minutes later when all the guys come in with only a few hiking ropes left.

"What now?" Hannu asks.

_"So what would we do after we tie them up?" Hannu asked after I said the plan of tying them up._

_ "They're linked to the government, so the government cares about them. We'll turn on every possible thing that makes water. We'll turn the showers and sinks on, while of course plugging the drains, and we'll clog the toilets so water floods the ground. Each of those four will be in a bathroom that is flooding with the door closed. We'll cover the crack in the bottom and top of the door, and then there's the possibility that they'll drown. This will make the government know we'll fight, and there's a possibility that they'll come in to stop it. It will leave a door or window open, and boom, we'll get out," I said._

_ A few jaws dropped for awhile as they processed it. Until Ella made a good point, "But how will they know that their own is drowning?"_

_ I shrugged, "It's obvious this place is most likely bugged. They'll be watching. This is risky, but it's our only way out."_

We break off in pairs. Joseph and Stanley, Ella and Heidi, Maggie and Hannu, and Marina and I. Each pair is assigned a person. It leaves Sophia and John to go downstairs to set off the fire alarm so the government is really aware. Marina and I get Sarah. When we get to Sarah's room, we carry her limp body that is tied at the wrists and ankles into the bathroom. With the rope that the guys gave us, we tie her body to the metal pole of the shower. After doing that, we work quickly to turn the shower and sink on while plugging the drains. Once the sink starts to overflow on the tiled floor, we rush out to the bedroom. I pull out my pocket knife and slice a pretty large piece of the duvet cover. I grip the fabric in my hands as we go back into the bathroom where the floor is starting to get wet. I stuff the duvet into the toilet, and I flush it and thankfully it's clogged. Water starts to overflow out of the bowl and add to the ground. We rush out of the bathroom and we close the door behind us. We seal the door closed by stuffing stuff in the small open crease at the bottom and top.

A few minutes later, I'm sitting in the living room amongst the Loric as a loud fire alarm blares in our ears. But other than the alarm, the room is silent. We all sit with straight posture and anxiety radiating into the air. I kick at my hiking backpack, which is by my feet. On second thought, we'll need a getaway, I won't have time to scoop it up and grab it. I quickly sling the thing on my shoulders and buckle it tightly.

"How long will this take?" Stanley asks while he paces impatiently.

I shrug, "The government knows by now. They'll probably rush in when they're starting to drown. So a few hours."

"For breaking out and getting out of here, it sure is boring." Heidi muses.

I shrug again and pull out a granola bar. My stomach is turning from nerves of this situation, because my mind has been racing about the fact that we could just end up with four dead bodies on our hands. Still, I need to eat and be energized for what's to come.

"How are you even eating right now?" John asks.

"We need to have energy," I state.

The room goes back to an uncomfortable silence. Well it isn't silent. A loud fire alarm is blaring in my ear even though there isn't a fire. John just made an object emit smoke from his lumen and then he and Sophia held it up to the alarm until it started to blare. It was a good idea to get their attention, but it sure is annoying.

I swallow the remains of the granola bar, and it sits like lead in my stomach. Maybe eating wasn't a good idea. It feels like with all of our nerves, it's making me even more anxious. Which makes me so nauseous. My twitchy hands bounce the knife around in my hands as we watch the TV that shows silent images. My eyes fixate on the front door instead. That is where they'll break in, most likely. What's up ahead has all of my attention to it.

You'd be surprised how slowly time can move. The next two hours simply feel like time is an old person driving while traveling through molasses. So, yeah, time moves the slowest it ever has. It feels even slower than those really boring lectures in college with the professors whose first language is definitely not English, so the way they speak is almost impossible to decipher and so boring that time moves so slow. And time moving so slowly while my insides turn and rip around with nerves like a tornado is ripping though me makes it even worse.

In those two hours, I spend a lot of time watching the front door. And about every five minutes with paranoia branded into my brain, I go up and check every room so no water leaks out of the bathroom. My mind is extremely curious as to where the water level is. Eventually, my foggy brain clears up after two hours and my hand moves on the door to feel any dampness on the other side. It's about midlevel of the door, so it's going to be at least another hour or two.

My watch shows that it's noon. I'm about to get up to check the water levels again, but the deafening fire alarms stop. The silence in the room is so sudden from the recent loudness that my ears ring wildly. So the sound of wind rushing in from upstairs and loud creaking on the stairs sends my body flying off of the couch and onto my feet. They're here. They're actually in here.

I wait anxiously while holding my pocket knife out in my hands. Eventually, they all stop at the bottom of the stairs, and my ability to breathe is gone. It feels like shock has slapped me so hard in the face that the world spins. Fear runs like ice inside my veins.

Mark and Sarah stand with big guns in their hands with men in SWAT-esque outfits on. They are clearly government officials, from the labels on their clothing and the identical guns in all of their hands. And the surprise is that Mark and Sarah are wearing the same things. I knew this from the start, my plan was centered on it, but the fact that it's true is crazy.

More footsteps creak on the stairs. I suppress a groan, because it's probably more government officials with _actual _weapons and who can kill us. But this time, it's Sam and Adam. But they're dressed in the wet clothing. Sam has notebooks upon notebooks tucked under his arms. And Adams wrists are still tied and he looks more confused than ever.

"Wow, Mer, you're so smart." Sarah muses.

"W-what are you talking about?" I stutter out as her gun casually points my way.

"You were right about…almost everything. Let me just piece everything together for you. Mark and I are government officials, not college students. And this was all on purpose. And we do this often. We pose as college students and take a group on a hike. Somebody starts to act suspicious when we get lost, then the flashlights go out with no option to turn back, and then we go into the perfectly placed cabin. From there, we get infected with radiation, but not us, we all had masks to not inhale it. And the radiation would give you these 'legacies.' And it's all just one big psychological test to see how you deal with the danger on your heads, getting powers, and being trapped. It's a government test that we do a lot called _Quarantined in the Desert_ to see who rises above or crumbles in this situation." Sarah states calmly.

Her words sink in my brain and everything pieces together in my mind. I open my mouth and say, "So it's all just one big psychological test that you do a lot?" For fun, I want to add.

She nods, "Yes."

"What about Sam and Adam?" John asks.

"Sam's a writer. He came here to write and log about the psychological affects of a situation like this," Sarah says. "Adam, well he didn't know any of this. His dad is just an official who got him in on this."

Adam shrugs past everyone on the stairs with anger in his eyes. He stands next to the Loric with a frown on his face. His eyes aim on a man on the stairs, "Why would you do that? I don't want anything to do with your evil government tests!"

My jaw almost drops, Adam didn't know and Sam did. It shows that Sam is just as bad as them. My hand tightens on the knife in my hand. I have the right to be angry about this. I level my eyes with Sarah's blue ones. "So now that you've explained the project, can we leave? What now?"

Her lips curl up in a smile as she slowly shakes her head and my stomach drops. It feels like a heavy weight of fear has dropped down on me and crushed me. My stomach twists with each of her next words.

"No, you guys can't leave. The public can't know about this kind of stuff that The Government does. So know that you know we'll end the experiment the same way that we always do. Now we have to kill all of you."

**DUN DUN DUN! Nice little cliffhanger for you guys to think about. Actually it's a really big cliffhanger, but anyways, I started The Fall of Five, and I'm almost done. Just if you're all curious about that. And, with this very crazy cliffhanger on the internet, I'd like to say that summer is coming to a close and my schedule is getting busy, so I won't update this for a couple more days. But this is almost done, and yeah. Um, and since I couldn't care less about the romance in my story but everyone else does from reviews about the subtle triangle (John/Mer/Stanley), you guys get to pick who she ends up with. Please ya know, just tell me who she should end up with in a review and the person with the most votes, so to say, by the time I have to write it in, will be the one she ends up with. Dang, this is a super long note. But it just needed to be out there. So please leave some reviews. Thanks:)**


	12. Chapter 12

** Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

Chapter 12

Everything comes crashing down on me at once. The fear, the paranoia, everything was right. The fear and paranoia of the six weeks suffocated me, and now the reality of death kills me. We're going to die. The cold hard reality of it makes the ability to breathe completely gone. A fear that I've only known once, when I was held at gunpoint when I was thirteen, blinds me and stunts off all of my senses for a few moments. I blink away the black dots clouding up my vision as it feels like fear has been pumped into my veins from an IV. Chills pump up and down my spine as my hazel eyes stay locked with Sarah's blue ones. It all just crashes down on me and it is truly terrifying.

That silent noise that most people hear in the movies when they are experiencing something traumatic sounds in my ears. A slight ringing accompanies the thick silence. The silent air is thick and feels like I'm breathing in molasses. In that single moment of pure shocking and terrifying silence, I watch through a haze as Joseph's mouth moves. None of his words ring in my ears until he repeats himself again.

"Are you serious?"

It's like the thick silence of shock and fear crashes down and into reality once he says that. Time seems to move by at a fast rate now instead of a slow one. Sarah takes a few steps towards Joseph as she adjusts her large gun in her hands. I can hear Marina yell something in protest as Sarah points the gun to Joseph. I watch in anticipation. Once she clicks off the safety, everything sets off in me.

I grab the toothbrush shiv out of my pocket. In a swift motion, I manage to stride over quickly. Mark is close behind Sarah and there's a chance that he'll lash out at me. So as Sarah's finger hovers over a trigger, I jump. Spinning in the air, I kick Mark's jaw, sending him flying back, and I dig the shiv into Sarah's back. My feet land on the ground with a thud as the shiv rests in Sarah's back. With adrenaline sprinting in my veins, I twist the shiv tightly around in her back, subsequently tearing her flesh and tearing possible organs. Once I rip out the weapon and blood pours out like a waterfall, it sets a battle into place.

The government officials start to rush towards me, and thankfully John starts blinding them with his Lumen and everyone else starts to rush them. I turn my attention back to Sarah who stumbles. I dig the shiv into her side, and use it to shove her body to the ground. She hits the ground with a thud, and my gaze levels with Joseph's. He nods at me in appreciation before changing forms and rushing away.

I spin around on my heel to join the action. My fist collides with Mark's jaw as he jumps to his feet. He looks at me with a stunned look in his eyes. I push the shiv forward and into his gut. Once quickly pulling it out, his hands reach to grip his wound. Making quite quick movements, I rabbit kick his sides and abdomen until he falls on the ground, on top of Sarah. They both let out grunts as they lay on the ground, probably maimed.

My eyes turn to the battle ahead. I watch as Sophia rips off the banister to the staircase. Stanley takes it from her hands in a flurry while racing up the wall and onto the ceiling. He rushes towards the upstairs, probably to take care of the agents rushing in. Marina engages in a fist fight with two guys, and I'm about to rush and help when I notice a man who Adam was yelling at, rushing towards me.

On instinct, I turn invisible right in front of him. He slowly stops in confusion at my sudden disappearance. I use it to my advantage to dig the shiv into his temple. He crumples to the ground. I don't know if he's dead. It really doesn't affect me anymore. My life is on the line, I'll do anything to survive. Even if I have to stoop to their level and kill, except I'm killing to survive, they're doing it for their own enjoyment.

I start to rush towards Marina when the ground starts quaking beneath my feet. It feels like I'm slipping. I watch the government officials fight the quaking ground until they fall onto their butts and brutal ceiling tiles selectively crash onto them and kill them. My eyes shoot forward to Heidi who is doing this, but none of the Loric are falling. It's selective, but she can't see me. Thankfully for some reason, Stanley jumps down on the ground next to me and Heidi stops.

"Ella told me through her telepathy that you were here," he whispers.

A smile forms on my face as I race over to the rest of the group as Stanley returns to the ceiling to fight off government officials rushing into the place. Some of the men are still alive, but not many. Heidi's power killed most of them. They stumble to their feet. On an instinct, I rush over to a dead government official and I struggle to pull the gun off of him. I pull it off just as the officials limp over. The gun unloads as I pull the trigger. It recoils a bit as it automatically zooms. Bullets whiz out and into the flesh of these terrible, terrible people who locked us up for their pure enjoyment.

The gun is empty by the time a sea of bodies lie on the ground. Some are probably still alive, but I can't really think as my racing brain starts to die down into a calm. My legs move before I process what I'm doing. I pull guns upon guns off of all these bodies. I slide them over to the shell shocked Loric. Once all of us, Adam included, are gripping a gun, I stand up and level my gaze with all of their shocked ones.

"We may need these, now we can get out," I say.

"She's right, up here!" Stanley yells from the upstairs, "I'm holding the window open, grab me a gun."

I rush to grab another gun before we race up the staircase and into my room where a breeze is emitted from. Stanley stands on the ceiling as he reaches his arms out to hold the window open. I toss a large gun up to him, and he holds it in one hand. I help Stanley by standing on the bed and lifting our Loric up until Stanley can hold them. He then holds each one of them and helps them climb out the window and onto the roof. I'm the last one that he lifts up and out of the window.

I blink away the sunlight that I haven't seen in so long. It feels so good against my skin, but the greatness of a sun is short lived. All happiness right now is short lived. I grip the gun tightly in my hands as I notice what's surrounding us as we stand on the roof. A circle of military cars surround us. It wouldn't be so bad if men upon men didn't start climbing out with lethal weapons in their hands pointed right towards us.

**Well…I apologize for how short that was. With how much I write in general (yes, a lot of my writing is not on the internet for the public's eyes) I have never wrote a chapter this short. But school started and I'm just tired, but I had time to write, so why not? So yeah, it could've been quite longer, but I wanted to leave you guys with a nice little cliffhanger ;). Anyways, keep those votes up for that stupid love triangle thing that I started…ugh, I hate writing romance – right now the odds are in Stanley's favor, I think I vaguely remember counting. Oh, and I finished reading The Fall of Five, I don't get why people are hating on it. I thought it was quite good. So yeah, sorry for the shortness and please leave some more reviews. I'll try to spit out the next chapter as soon as I can. **


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: I don't anything.**

** And a warning: This chapter is sooooo short. Darn.**

Chapter 13

I don't even have time to process nor turn invisible. Before I even realize anything, white hot pain tears through the flesh of my upper thigh, as a bullet slices through my skin. I do my best to not cry out in the sudden and unbearable pain. My leg just gives out, and my back hits the shingles of the slanted roof. I grip on tightly, so I don't go sliding down to the gutter. Deafening sounds of gunfire then fills the area.

I pull my body by using my arms until I'm tucked behind the chimney. The Loric start to return the fire when I get there, and thankfully, Marina is rushing over to my side. She wordlessly places her fingers on the gaping hole in my leg. It pounds in pain as iciness spreads through the wound until the thing closes up, only showing a bit of blood and perspiration.

When I'm back on my feet, Heidi tosses her gun at me and I catch it. I strap it onto my back and turn invisible. Heidi sticks her arms out, and the next thing I know, the ground is quaking violently beneath the feet of our enemies on the ground. They start falling and no more gunfire is sent our way. We all use it to our advantage. Using every last bullet in each gun, so carefully to drive a bullet through as many heads as possible. We're desperate to survive.

The erupting noise of bullets is all I can hear in those moments as the government struggles on the ground. There's so many of them, and no matter how many of us shoot and shoot, we're so outnumbered. After some amazing aiming, a few moments later, the ammo in every gun dwindles down to nothing, and Heidi collapses into Adam's arms in exhaustion.

Shit.

Each and every government official that is still alive climbs up to their feet. My stomach turns in dread. Now we're just sitting ducks. I blink once, and the bullets start firing our way. I get out of the way, because they can't see me, but Ella isn't so lucky. A bullet digs into her leg just like one did to me. I yank her by me and behind the chimney.

"Mer?" She asks to the empty air.

"Yes, contact Marina. Have her come over here," I whisper out of thin air.

I watch the battle from behind here, as I protect Ella and throw a few loose shingles at the throats of government officials. Everyone on the roof is just doing everything to avoid bullets, and they aren't doing much to fight back. Except for Stanley, he rushes back to the window to climb in the house, I assume to get more guns. Marina rushes over our way, and with perfect timing, an unexpected bullet hits her right in the stomach when she is within feet of us.

She lies on her back and I watch her heal herself until the wound closes up. She's then back on her feet and at Ella's side. I get up when she's there, guarding Ella. I rip out shingles and throw them like knives at the people below; they surprisingly do well and inflict some damage. Stanley comes rushing out of the house holding four guns, and I rush up to him and take one right out of his arms. He isn't surprised when I do so. My mind spins as I unleash the bullets precisely.

We run out of bullets quickly, and there are still way too many people numbered against us. All of which have so many weapons each. They're going to annihilate us, because the only way out is in the line of fire. I could easily sneak out of here, but morally I can't. I have to stay here and fight.

With my failing theory of throwing shingles seems to never end, I notice Joseph climb down the roof in the shape of a bug. I watch him with interest. His feet hit the ground, and he transforms to some huge beast. That's enough to give us all hope.

John starts blinding people and setting them on fire. Heidi snaps out of her exhaustion and sends quakes on the ground and makes part of the cabin crush down on people. Maggie flies around and plucks weapons out of the hands of officials and in turn uses it on them. Hannu rushes around and somehow uses his power to his advantage. Sophia rushes around and rips colossally sized pieces out of the house as she whips them at people. Marina and Ella work off of each other to beat up the government officials who climb up and onto the roof. By now Joseph is crushing people to pieces like they're small lego houses. Stanley uses his anti-gravity to run along the sides of the house with the ripped up banister to decapitate people. And I, invisibly, jump off the roof and onto the ground. I rush around and either hit them with my hands until I beat them to death, or I steal their weapons and use them against them.

The numbers against us dwindle down, and the high of the battle sits lightly on the Loric's shoulders as we happily see a good ending coming towards us. Every high has to come to an end though.

I rush around a corner of the house just in time to see a large sword rip through Joseph's abdomen. In an instant, my feet are flying, and I pull the sword out of the official's hand, and I stab it through his abdomen – killing him. He falls to the ground and I crouch down next to Joseph who is back in his human form and whimpering. I pull his body over my shoulder, and turn visible for a second.

"Stanley!" I yell as he rushes on the side wall.

He looks over at me and notices Joseph's blood rushing down my shoulder and back. He hops off of the wall and picks us both up and climbs us onto the roof. Once my feet set on the uneven roof, I rush over to Marina. Her jaw drops when she sees Joseph bleeding out on my shoulder. I set him down in a flurry and right in front of her. I can't watch my best friend's tortured expression, so I rush back towards the edge of the roof and then turn invisible. I look over my shoulder one last time to see Marina's hands on his healed stomach as she leans down and kisses Joseph. _Wow_…took them long enough.

When Joseph was stabbed, I imagined it being the breaking point for the battle and we would lose, but as I look over the edge the numbers are low. And the victory of the battle rushes around in my mind. This could be all over really soon. I'm about to jump off the roof when I finish them off, when I feel a hand on my invisible shoulder. The next thing I know, sudden pressure rips into my back as a sharp knife stabs right in my back.

"Try turning invisible earlier than right when you're about to jump off," the familiar voice of Sarah Hart rings in my ear.

Her hand lets go of my shoulder, and I crash down onto my back once she pulls the knife out. I grunt from the searing pain. Sarah looks down at me. She's bloody, but she still smiles sadistically. I want to wipe that smirk off her face. I'm about to jump to my feet when she dives down and digs the knife into my neck.

The world spins, and despite the blinding sunlight, I see stars. Black dots edge in my vision as I try to let out a choking noise, but nothing comes out. Sarah leaves the knife in my throat and she pulls another one out of her belt. She looks at me with defiance as the throbbing pain in my back spreads down to my legs, and as a foreign object sits in my throat. She delivers a painful kick in my side before walking away and towards Adam to stab him. I try to scream out to help him, and I try to scream out to Marina so she can heal me. But no sound comes out.

I don't know how much time passes. Just that I lie there helplessly injured, due to my own stupidity. The pain is terrible, until all at once lightness takes over my body. I struggled for air so much before, and now that my mind is so light, it should hurt, but it doesn't. My eyes start to glaze over as I stare into a blinding light. All the pain is gone, there's just lightness everywhere. I can't hear anymore, and I can't see the anything but the blinding light. Is this what dying feels like? Am I dying? I blink one more time, and that brightness I'm staring into turns black in an instant. And just like that, I'm gone.

**Dang. Right? That was short, just like the last chapter…and I'm so sorry. And the real question: do you think that Six/Mer/whatever just died? Haha, only I know, and you'll all find out later. And I'm also sorry, because this whole thing was super forced out of my brain, I just…gah! Sorry. This is just not my best work. Anyways, one more chapter and an epilogue left. And then it's the end of Quarantined in the Desert. And with those two pieces left, you should all prep yourselves that I have stuff to do now, so updates will be somewhat spaced out. I just write whenever I have the time. Anyways, thanks for all the reviews. Please leave some more. They really do help me continue on with this story when I have to force chapters out like this one.**


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer: Same deal, I don't own anything.**

Chapter 14

The first thing I manage to register in the sea of blackness is the horrid overplayed pop music filling my ears. I must've been captured by the government and they're managing to torture me right now with this music that has been the only song played on the radio four months prior to the hiking trip. I honestly do not want to open my eyes right now. I don't want to meet the void blue eyes of Sarah Hart, because she'll probably be staring down at me, ready to try and kill me again.

This is when I realize that I'm actually alive – that Sarah didn't kill me. I let out a breath of relief, which is instantly taken away when I feel a car moving underneath me as we hit a pothole. My limp body jumps in the air from the speedy impact, and I land on the floor of the car knocking the air out of my lungs.

A high pitched, "Shit," enters into the air. It certainly isn't me; I'm not that shrill about my own injury, despite the ringing from the stab wound in my neck. Unconsciously, my hand goes up to touch the wound that rings in soreness. A thick bandage sits on it as I process the voice as Heidi's. Maybe the government didn't separate us to take us away.

My eyes crack open to snake-like slits. My dilated pupils argue with me as the sun sheds across the gray ceiling of the car stares back at me. A groan rips out of my throat before I have time to process. A head swims into my vision, it's Heidi. Her blonde hair is tied back in a ponytail and she has a wide smile on her face along with dark eyeliner above and below her eyes. Her skin is considerably tanner too, probably bronzer. Did the government supply her with beauty products?

Marina and Joseph's heads of dark hair look at me from the front seat of the truck. Their white teeth glint in the sunlight shed into the car. My eyes flash around to see what's going on. I can decipher a blonde head of hair peeking out from the steering wheel as they drive, although it isn't female. It isn't Sarah. My shaky arms pull my body up somewhat to see the chiseled facial features of my co-worker Luke. What in God's name is going on?

Apparently I voice my last thought about what's going on, because both Heidi and Adam pull me up into the row of seats next to them as Marina looks back at me with a wide smile. She's smiling too much for something bad to be happening. It makes the heavy weight on my chest lift somewhat.

"Good to see you awake," she says.

"What's going on?" I ask, my voice is ragged and it surprises me.

"Where to start," Heidi says rhetorically.

"Well," Marina says, "after I healed Joseph, I witnessed Sarah stabbing you in the neck. When she went on to kill Adam, I stopped her." Marina's eyes stare off out the windshield with glassiness to them as she says, "I stopped her by killing her."

"Good job," I muse neutrally. Marina looks back at me with an appalled expression, probably because I'm complimenting her on murder. "And sorry," I tack on.

"After that happened, we defeated them," Joseph says. "The only other injury was that Stanley got shot in the shoulder once one of the men knocked him off the house."

"Okay?" I say somewhat quizzically. "But how did you get here Luke?"

He looks over his shoulder at me for a moment, "Well I couldn't leave everyone to die. After your call with me ended, I grabbed a gun and my truck. I did have to take a different route up the Loric Trail, but ultimately, I made it up right when the battle was coming to a close. I managed to run a few agents down. And then I had to talk Heidi, here, out of killing me when she thought I was another agent."

"But then he reminded me that we're cousins," Heidi jokes.

I glance between the two of them, connecting the brown eyes and blonde hair together, alongside the tan skin and small foreheads and detect some relation there. I don't bother to ask, oh you guys are cousins, because it's a waste of speech and breath when Heidi clearly just pointed that out.

"So then what?" I rasp.

Luke shrugs, "You all got in the truck and we drove off-"

I interrupt, "Where is everyone else?"

"In the bed of the truck, right behind you," Joseph points out.

My head whips around to stare out the small window in the back. Maggie and Sophia chat animatedly as they both try and pet their hair down as it whips in the wind. Hannu sleeps in the corner, next to John who stares out behind him. And Ella sleeps curled up in a ball next to Stanley whose dark eyes coincidentally meet mine. He raises a hand in the air to wave, and then proceeds to wince because he lifted his hand up that's in a sling. A smile crosses my face and I return the gesture weakly.

I turn around and look back to the group, "Where are we going now? And how did this bandage get on my neck, and that sling on Stanley's arm?"

"We stopped at a walk-in clinic; it was the first thing that we came across." Luke says, "I panicked, because most of you were bleeding profusely and/or unconscious."

My mind whirs and I whip my head back around to look out the window. The truck zooms on a crowded road past other cars. And large buildings sit on the landscape; we shouldn't be so noticeable with the government targeting us. They must know that we annihilated some of their own and their project; I can only assume that they want their revenge and kill us once and for all.

"Once they patched you guys up somewhat, we left. Now I'm taking you all to the hospital, which is," Luke's eyes scan the GPS sitting on the dashboard, "two miles away."

"That's a terrible idea," I spew the words out of my mouth. "We are obvious targets to the government. And they're the _government _for Christ's sake. If we check into a hospital, they'll find us in minutes and get their revenge for once and for all."

The burdening thought of living my whole life in hiding away from the government hits me. It sits in my stomach like lead and I frown at the thought. It will be near impossible and a predictable demise is obvious and present in my subconscious.

Everyone in the truck shares sad glances, and my curious mind whirs. "Who's gonna tell her?" Heidi asks, "I'm not."

"What's going on?" I ask.

Marina twists her body so her dark eyes level with my hazel. An ironic smile that twinges with sadness plasters on her face as she speaks with pity apparent in her tone. "When we got to the clinic, from the stab and gun wounds, a nurse called the police. We didn't know until they got there, and we almost bolted with your exact same mindset. But once they questioned us and got the information out of us, they made some calls and they opened up some case and figured something out."

"What was it?" I ask.

"Actually, Mer, you were right from the beginning, they were a campus cult. They weren't really the government, just a few sick psychology majors that took testing everyone's mental stability way too far."

**So…yeah, sorry for procrastinating on writing this. I've just been writing things otherwise that I preferred, but with my now free time about to be consumed by sports, I reminded myself that I needed to finish this beforehand. So I am bringing this obscenely short chapter to you now. Only the epilogue is left and then this will be over. The epilogue will probably be up within the next few days or if I'm really on a roll – tonight. Please review and tell me what you all think!**


	15. Epilogue

**Disclaimer: I don't own anything.**

Epilogue

I plop down in the squishy arena chair with my hand grasped tightly in Stanley's. I look over to him. The darkness of the room creates shadows on the slope of his nose. He notices me watching him, and he leans over and places a small kiss on my lips.

Once we pull apart, I look across him to the rest of the group sitting down. Joseph holds his arm tightly around Marina as they sit down. Ella chats with her uncle. Maggie and Hannu comfortably talk together as they sit down. And John and Sophia idly chat with red faces. John's blue eyes look across the group and at me, he smiles at me and I return it. I remember months after being rescued, we talked and he told me the whole reason he threw himself at me was due to Sarah's odd behavior. He started to notice something was off about her, and he panicked and took comfort with me.

I stare straight ahead to the stage as lights shine on the dean of the college. He starts to give a long speech about graduation and integrity. I stare off as my past that never leaves me sits in my brain.

The whole entire summer after the rescue, we were questioned in the hospital. It all resulted in a huge news scandal about some campus cult kidnapping students and infecting them while quarantining them in the desert. It was called _Quarantine in the Desert_. After being questioned beyond belief, expert scientists managed to reverse the infection from radiation it had on us. I can no longer turn invisible and nobody else can use their legacy. Legacy is what I ended up deciding to call the powers we had, because it was like an inheritance we got from all the victims that the "government" killed before us. I figured it was appropriate.

Time must've passed by quickly, because the dean starts to name off students graduating. I think to how the university's reputation was so terrible after the scandal that it almost went bankrupt, until we all decided to not press charges. Ultimately, they decided to pay for our schooling. It was somewhat unorthodox, but they were truly sorry for something they didn't even do.

My hand tightens in Stanley's as the memories haunt my brain. I shake my head at myself and focus on the stage as Heidi and Adam cross it. Heidi got her act together after the whole ordeal, and she managed to get enough credits to graduate. Heidi holds the diploma in both of her hands as she dances the whole way across the stage. Adam follows and the couple shares a kiss at the end of the stage, before they climb off. I smile and zone out for the rest of the graduation ceremony.

An hour later, the group of us sits in a restaurant eating burgers. Many looks are always sent our ways since it was such a huge deal on the news. It was exactly a year ago when the hike started and I try to look at it in as positive of a way as possible. Sure, it was one of the most negative experiences of my life, but the only thing that has gotten all of us through is what they taught us in the group therapy that the university paid for – is to look past the negatives, because they're over and the positives are the only reason we're still here.

I let out a small laugh at Heidi's joke as I toss the memories of the quarantine out of my mind. It's all in my past. I just need to look at the ten other positives that came for me out of this memory.

This group of people that feels like we're our own species and like we're family.

We all faced the same hardship, which felt like the world was against us, but together we were all stronger and we dominated them.

We started off as a group of strangers.

We became stronger as we worked together.

We fought our own war ourselves, and we survived the quarantine in the desert.

(My best friend bonding week ended up taking me to hell and back, but it couldn't stay bad forever, we got out of the hell from the situation and we're back.)

I found my people and my own family. The events made me who I am.

I am a warrior.

**Well, as I promised, I'm posting the epilogue in the same day. I get it, cheesy ending, but I'm just choosing to embrace it. And it's short, because epilogues are supposed to be short. And this puts an end to my fic. I would like to thank all of you guys for the supportive reviews that helped me finish this thing. Thanks so much, I can't fathom into words how much your support helped me! :) It's kind of sad and a relief that I finished this. But, you know, it's over and well… I'll awkwardly close out of this fic with another thank you for all of you readers and reviewers!**


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